The Sand-Man | Page 9

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.
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,