Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992)

by David G. Hartwell (Ed. )

  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

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  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

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  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

  extremeties 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.

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  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 halfmoon as food for his little ones— no! 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 onto the floor. Coppelius immediately

  seized upon me. “You little brute! You little brute!” he

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  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 them 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 there with 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

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  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; T 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-stricken, and

  leaped out of bed. Then I heard a wild heart-rending

  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

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  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 peddler 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 Cop-

  pelius’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 avenge

  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.

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  C lara to N ath an ael

  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 stop before hastily fleeing, 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 learned 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 peddler 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