NATHANAEL - LOTAR

You are probably all terribly worried now that I haven’t written for so long. Mother, of course, is angry, and Clara, perhaps, thinks that I spend my life in noisy pleasures and have completely forgotten my lovely angel, whose appearance is so deeply imprinted in my mind and heart. But this is unfair: every day and at every hour I remember you, and in sweet dreams the friendly image of my dear Clerchen appears to me, and her bright eyes smile at me as captivatingly as it happened when I came to you. Oh, was I able to write to you in that mental turmoil that had hitherto upset all my thoughts! Something terrible has invaded my life! A gloomy premonition of a terrible fate threatening me spreads over me like black shadows of clouds that not a single friendly ray of the sun penetrates. But first I need to tell you what happened to me. I know that I have to do this, but as soon as I think about it, crazy laughter rises in me. Ah, dear Lothar, how can I make you feel even in part that what happened to me a few days ago could really have disastrously disturbed my life! If you were here, you would see everything for yourself; however, now you will probably regard me as an extravagant spirit seer. In a word, the terrible thing that happened to me and left a deadly impression on me, which I am trying in vain to get rid of, was simply that a few days ago, precisely on October 30, at noon, a salesman came into my room barometers and offered me his goods. I didn’t buy anything, and even threatened to throw him down the stairs, in response to which he immediately left himself.

You guess that only completely unusual circumstances, which left a deep mark on my life, could give importance to this adventure, so that the person of the ill-fated ragpicker should have had such a disastrous effect on me. And so it is. I am gathering all my strength to calmly and patiently tell you something from the times of my early youth, so that your agile mind can clearly and clearly imagine everything in living images. But I barely want to start this when I already hear your laughter and Clara’s words: “But this is sheer childishness!” Laugh, I ask you, laugh at me with all your heart! I'm begging you! But, merciful God, my hair stands on end, and it seems to me that, begging you to laugh at me, I am in the same insane despair in which Franz Moor conjured Daniel. But let's get to the point!

Except during lunch, my brothers and sisters and I rarely saw our father during the day. He was probably very busy with his position. After dinner, which, according to old custom, was served at seven o’clock, we all went with my mother to my father’s office and sat down at the round table. My father smoked tobacco and sipped beer from a large glass from time to time. He often told us various outlandish stories, and he himself became so enraged that his pipe always went out, and I had to bring burning paper to it and light it again, which amused me greatly. Often he would also give us picture books, while he himself, silent and motionless, would sit in an armchair, blowing out such thick clouds of smoke around him that we all seemed to be floating in a fog. On such evenings, the mother would be very sad and, as soon as nine o’clock struck, she would say: “Well, children! Now to bed! To bed! The Sandman is coming, I can already see it!” Indeed, every time I heard heavy, measured steps thundering down the stairs; That's right, it was the Sandman. One day this dull stomping and roar especially frightened me; I asked my mother when she was taking us away: “Oh, mummy, who is this evil Sandpiper who always drives us away from daddy? What does he look like? “My child, there is no Sandman,” the mother answered, “when I say that the Sandman is coming, it only means that your eyelids are sticking together and you cannot open your eyes, as if you were covered with sand.” My mother’s answer did not reassure me, and in my childish mind the thought clearly arose that my mother denied the existence of the Sandman only so that we would not be afraid of him - after all, I always heard him climbing the stairs! Spurred by curiosity and wanting to find out in detail everything about the Sandman and his attitude towards children, I finally asked the old nanny who had been nurturing my younger sister, what kind of person is this, Sandpiper? “Eh, Tanelkhen,” she said, “don’t you really know yet? It's such evil person , who comes for the children when they are stubborn and do not want to go to sleep, he throws a handful of sand in their eyes, so that they are covered with blood and climb on their foreheads, and then puts the children in a bag and takes them to the moon, to feed his children, which they sit there in a nest, and their beaks are crooked, like owls, and they peck out the eyes of naughty human children.” And so my imagination presented me with a terrible image of the cruel Sandpiper; in the evening, as soon as footsteps thundered on the stairs, I trembled with melancholy and horror. My mother couldn’t get anything out of me except screams interrupted by sobs: “Sandbox! Sandpiper! I ran headlong into the bedroom, and the terrifying ghost of the Sandman tormented me all night. I had already come to such an age that I could understand that with the Sandman and his nest on the moon everything was not exactly as my nanny told me; however, the Sandman still remained a terrible ghost for me - horror and trepidation filled me when I not only heard him climb the stairs, but noisily open the door to my father’s office and enter there. Sometimes he disappeared for a long time. But after that he came for several days in a row. Many years passed in this way, and yet I could not get used to this ominous obsession and the image of the cruel Sandpiper did not fade in my soul. His short interaction with my father occupied my imagination more and more; Some insurmountable shyness did not allow me to ask my father about this, but the desire to explore this secret myself, to see the fabulous Sandpiper, grew in me year after year. The Sandman took me on the path of the wonderful, the extraordinary, where it is so easy to seduce a child’s soul. I loved nothing more than Reading or listening to scary stories about kobolds, witches, gnomes, etc.; but everyone was dominated by the Sandman, whom I constantly drew everywhere - on tables, cabinets, walls, charcoal and chalk in the most strange and disgusting guises. When I was ten years old, my mother, sending me out of the nursery, gave me a room in the corridor not far from my father’s office. We were still hastily sent to bed as soon as nine o'clock struck and the approach of a stranger was heard in the house. From my closet I heard him enter my father’s room, and soon it began to seem to me that some thin, strange-smelling fumes were wafting through the house. Curiosity inflamed me more and more and finally gave me the determination to somehow see the Sandman. Often, as soon as my mother left, I would sneak out of my little room into the corridor. But I couldn’t notice anything, because when I reached the place where I could see the Sandman, he had already closed the door behind him. Finally, driven by an irresistible desire, I decided to hide in my father’s office and wait for the Sandman there.

One evening, from the silence of my father and the sad thoughtfulness of my mother, I concluded that the Sandman must come; and therefore, feeling very tired and not waiting for nine o’clock, I left the room and hid in a dark corner near the door. The front door creaked; Slow, heavy steps were heard in the hallway and on the stairs. The mother hurried past, taking the children away. Quietly I opened the door to my father's room. He sat, as usual, silent and motionless, with his back to the entrance; He didn’t notice me, I quickly slipped into the room and hid behind the curtain that covered the open closet where my father’s dress hung. Closer - steps were heard closer and closer - behind the doors someone was coughing strangely, grunting and muttering. My heart beat with fear and anticipation. Then footsteps began to thunder near the door, - near the door itself. Someone pulled the handle hard and the door creaked open! Bracing myself with all my strength, I carefully poke my head forward. The Sandman is standing in the middle of the room right in front of my father, the bright candlelight illuminating his face! The Sandman, the terrible Sandman - yes, it was the old lawyer Coppelius, who often dined with us!

However, no most terrible vision could plunge me into greater horror than this same Coppelius. Imagine a tall, broad-shouldered man with a large awkward head and a sallow face; greenish cat eyes sparkle viciously under his thick gray eyebrows; a huge, healthy nose hung over his upper lip. His crooked mouth often twitches with an evil smile; then two purple spots appear on the cheeks and a strange hiss escapes from clenched teeth. Coppelius always appeared in an ash-gray tailcoat of an ancient cut; He had the same camisole and trousers, black stockings and shoes with rhinestone buckles. A small wig barely covered the top of his head, curls stuck out above his large purple ears, and a wide, blank wallet puffed up at the back of his head, revealing a silver buckle that held his neckerchief together. His whole appearance inspired horror and disgust; but what we children especially hated were his knobby, shaggy hands, so that we were disgusted by everything he touched. He noticed this and began to amuse himself by the fact that, under various pretexts, he would deliberately touch the cookies or fruits that our kind mother secretly put on our plates, so that we, with tears in our eyes, looked at them and could not, from nausea and disgust, taste them. delicacies that always made us happy. He did exactly the same on holidays, when my father poured us a glass of sweet wine. He hurried to go through everything with his hands, or even raised a glass to his blue lips and burst into hellish laughter, noticing that we did not dare to reveal our annoyance except through quiet sobs. He always called us little animals, in his presence we were not allowed to make a word, and we wholeheartedly cursed the vile, hostile man who, with intent and intent, poisoned our most innocent joys. Mother, it seemed, just like us, hated the disgusting Coppelius, for as soon as he appeared, her cheerful ease was replaced by gloomy and preoccupied seriousness. His father treated him as a higher being who must be pleased in every possible way and patiently endure all his ignorance. The slightest hint was enough - and his favorite dishes were prepared for him and rare wines were served.

When I saw Coppelius, a sudden thought struck me, plunging me into horror and awe, that after all, no one else could be the Sandman, but this Sandman no longer seemed to me like a beech of nanny's tales, who drags children's eyes to feed his offspring in an owl's nest on the moon - no! - he was a disgusting ghostly sorcerer who, wherever he appeared, brought grief, misfortune - temporary and eternal death.

I stood as if spellbound. Poking my head out of the curtains, I stood there, eavesdropping, although I risked being discovered and, as I well understood, severely punished. The father greeted Coppelius very solemnly. “Live! Get to work!” - he exclaimed in a dull, nasal voice and took off his dress. The father silently and gloomily took off his dressing gown, and they dressed in long black robes. I didn't see where they got them from. Father opened the closet doors; and I saw: what I had long considered a closet was rather a black recess where there was a small fireplace. Coppelius approached, and the blue flame, crackling, soared above the hearth. Many strange vessels stood around. Oh my God! When my old father bent over the fire, what a terrible change happened to him! It seemed that a severe convulsive pain had transformed his meek, honest face into an ugly, disgusting satanic mask. He looked like Coppelius! This latter, taking red-hot tongs, pulled out white-hot lumps of some substance, which he then diligently beat with a hammer. It seemed to me that many human faces were flashing all around, only without eyes - instead of them there were terrible, deep black hollows. “Eyes here! Eyes!" - exclaimed Coppelius in a dull and menacing voice. Seized by inexplicable horror, I screamed and collapsed from my ambush onto the floor. And then Coppelius grabbed me. “Ah, little beast! Beast! - he bleated, gnashing his teeth, picked me up and threw me onto the fireplace, so that the flames singed my hair. “Now we have eyes, eyes, wonderful children’s eyes,” Coppelius muttered and, having collected handfuls of hot coals in the oven, he was about to throw them in my face. And so my father, stretching out his hands to him, prayed: “Master! Master! - leave your eyes to my Nathanael, - leave them! Coppelius laughed loudly: “Let the little one have eyes, and he will pay his lesson well in this world; Well, we’ll still check how his arms and legs are fitted.” And so he grabbed me with such force that all my joints cracked, and began to twist my arms and legs, first twisting them, then straightening them. “Yeah, this one doesn’t walk too bad!” - and this one is good, as it was! The old man knew his stuff!” - Coppelius hissed and muttered. But everything in my eyes became dark and clouded, a sudden spasm pierced my entire being - I felt nothing more. A warm, gentle breath touched my face, I woke up as if from a mortal sleep, my mother bent over me. “Is Sandpiper still here?” - I stammered. “No, my dear child, no, he left a long time ago and will not do anything bad to you! “- this is what the mother said and kissed and pressed her beloved son, who had been returned to her, to her heart.

But why bother you, dear Lothar? Why tell you all the details at such length when there is still so much that needs to be told to you? In a word, my eavesdropping was open, and Coppelius treated me cruelly. Fright and horror produced a strong fever in me, from which I suffered for several weeks. “Is Sandpiper still here?” - these were my first reasonable words and a sign of my recovery, my salvation. Now all that remains is to tell you about the most terrible hour of my youth; then you will be convinced: it is not the weakening of my eyes that is the reason that everything seems colorless to me, but a dark predestination really hangs over me, like a gloomy cloud, which I, perhaps, will dispel only by death.

Coppelius did not appear again; rumor spread that he had left the city.

About a year passed, we, according to our old, unchangeable custom, sat in the evening at the round table. My father was cheerful and told many interesting stories that happened to him on his travels during his youth. And so, when nine o’clock struck, we suddenly heard the hinges of the front door creaking and slow cast-iron steps thundering in the hallway and along the stairs. "It's Coppelius!" - Mother said, turning pale. "Yes! “This is Coppelius,” repeated the father in a tired, broken voice. Tears flowed from mother's eyes. "Father! Father! - she cried. “Is it really still necessary?” - ."Last time! - he answered, - this is the last time he comes to me, I promise you. Go, go with the children! Go, go to sleep! Good night!"

It was as if I was being crushed by a heavy cold stone—my breath was stifled! Mother, seeing that I was frozen motionless, took me by the hand: “Come on, Nathanael, let’s go!” I allowed myself to be led away, I entered my room. “Be calm, be calm, go to bed - sleep! sleep!” - my mother shouted after me; however, tormented by unspeakable inner fear and anxiety, I could not close my eyes. Hateful, vile Coppelius, his eyes sparkling, stood in front of me, laughing mockingly, and I tried in vain to drive his image away from me. That's right, it was already about midnight when a terrible blow was heard, as if fired from a cannon. The whole house shook, something rumbled and hissed near my door, and the front door slammed shut. "It's Coppelius!" - I exclaimed beside myself and jumped out of bed. And suddenly a piercing cry of inconsolable, unbearable grief was heard; I rushed to my father's room; the door was open wide, a suffocating fume was pouring towards me, the maid was screaming: “Oh, master, master!” My father lay on the floor in front of the smoking fire, dead, with a black, burnt, disfigured face; his sisters were screaming and howling around him - his mother was unconscious. “Coppelius, fiend of hell, you killed my father!” - I exclaimed and fainted. Two days later, when my father’s body was placed in a coffin, his features brightened again and became quiet and meek, as throughout his entire life. Consolation descended into my soul when I thought that his union with the infernal Coppelius would not bring upon him eternal condemnation.

The explosion woke up the neighbors, word spread about what had happened, and the authorities, having been notified of it, wanted to demand Coppelius to answer; but he disappeared from the city without a trace.

Now, my dear friend, when I reveal to you that the said seller of barometers was none other than the damned Coppelius, then you will not blame me for wrongly imagining that this hostile invasion will bring me great misfortune. He was dressed differently, but the figure and facial features of Coppelius were too deeply imprinted on my soul, so that I could not identify myself. Moreover, Coppelius did not even change his name. He poses here as a Piedmontese mechanic and calls himself Giuseppe Coppola.

I decided to have a good chat with him and avenge my father’s death, no matter the cost.

Don't say anything to your mother about the appearance of this vile sorcerer. Give my regards to dear Clara, I will write to her in a calmer frame of mind. Farewell, etc.

CLARA TO NATHANAEL

I’ll tell you frankly, I think that everything terrible and terrible that you are talking about happened only in your soul, and the real outside world had very little to do with it. Apparently, old Coppelius was indeed quite vile, but the fact that he hated children instilled in you a true disgust for him.

The scary Sandman from your nanny's fairy tale very naturally united in your childhood soul with old Coppelius, who, even when you stopped believing in the Sandman, remained for you a ghostly sorcerer, especially dangerous for children. His ominous meetings with your father at night were nothing more than secret studies of alchemy, with which your mother could not be happy, because, no doubt, a lot of money was wasted on this, and, as always happens with such adepts, these labors, filling the soul of your father with deceptive aspirations for high wisdom, distracted him from caring for his family. Your father probably caused his own death through his own carelessness, and Coppelius is not to blame for this. Would you believe it, yesterday I asked our knowledgeable neighbor, a pharmacist, whether such explosions could happen during chemical experiments, causing sudden death. He replied: “Of course!” - and described, as usual, very extensively and thoroughly how this could have been done, saying at the same time many tricky words, of which I could not remember a single one. Now you will become annoyed with your Clara, you will say: “Not a single ray of that mysterious thing that so often wraps a person in invisible arms penetrates into this cold soul; she sees only the motley surface of the world and, like a childish child, rejoices at the golden fruits, in the core of which a deadly poison is hidden.”

Ah, beloved Nathanael, or can’t you believe that even a cheerful, carefree, carefree soul can feel the hostile penetration of a dark force seeking to destroy us in our own “I”? But forgive me if I, an uneducated girl, try to somehow explain what, in fact, I mean by this internal struggle. In the end, I will probably not find the proper words, and you will laugh at me, not because I have stupid thoughts, but because I try so awkwardly to express them.

If there is a dark force that hostilely and treacherously throws a noose into our soul, in order to then capture us and drag us down a dangerous, destructive path that we would never have entered otherwise - if such a force exists, then it must take on our own image, become our “I”, for only in this case will we believe in it and give it the place in our soul that it needs for its mysterious work. But if our spirit is strong and strengthened by vital cheerfulness, then it is able to distinguish an alien, hostile influence, precisely as such, and calmly follow the path where our inclinations and calling take us - then this ominous force will disappear in the vain struggle for its image , which should become a reflection of our self. “It is also true,” Lothar added, “that the dark physical force, which we indulge in only of our own free will, often populates our soul with alien images brought into it by the outside world, so that we ourselves only inflame our spirit, which, as it seems to us, in a strange delusion, speaks from this image. It is the phantom of our own self, whose inner affinity with us and its profound influence on our soul plunges us into hell or lifts us up to heaven.” Now you see, my priceless Nathanael, that we, brother Lothar and I, have talked quite a lot about dark forces and principles, and this matter - after I have not without difficulty stated the most important thing here - seems to me quite profound. I don't understand very well last words Lothar, I just feel what he means by this, and yet it seems to me that all this is very fair. I beg you, completely throw out of your mind the vile lawyer Coppelius and barometer salesman Giuseppe Coppola. Imbued with the thought that these alien images have no power over you; only faith in their hostile power can make them truly hostile to you. If every line of your letter did not testify to the cruel confusion of your mind, if your condition did not crush me to the core, then I really could laugh at the lawyer Sandman and the barometer seller Coppelius. Be merry, merry! I decided to be your guardian angel and, as soon as the vile Coppola intends to disturb your sleep, I will appear to you and drive him away with a loud laugh. I am not at all afraid of him or his nasty hands, and he will not dare, under the guise of a lawyer, to spoil my delicacies or, like the Sandman, to fill my eyes with sand.

Yours forever, my dearly beloved Nathanael, etc., etc.

NATHANAEL - LOTAR

I am very annoyed that the other day Clara, however, due to my absent-mindedness, mistakenly printed and read my letter to you. She wrote me a very thoughtful, philosophical letter, in which she proves at length that Coppelius and Coppola exist only in my imagination, they are just phantoms of my “I”, which will instantly crumble into dust if I recognize them as such. Indeed, who would have thought that the mind, so often shining like a sweet dream in those bright, charming, laughing children's eyes, could be so reasonable, so capable of masterful definitions. She refers to you. You talked about me together. You are probably giving her a full course in logic so that she can distinguish and separate everything so subtly. Give it up! However, there is now no doubt that the barometer seller Giuseppe Coppola is not the old lawyer Coppelius at all. I am listening to lectures from a professor of physics who recently arrived here, a natural Italian, whose name, like the famous naturalist, is Spalanzani. He has known Coppola for a long time, and, besides, one can notice from just one reprimand that he is a pure Piedmontese. Coppelius was a German, but, it seems to me, not a real one. I'm not completely calm yet. Consider me, both of you, you and Clara, if you want, a gloomy dreamer, I still cannot free myself from the impression that the damned face of Coppelius made on me. I'm glad he left town, as Spalanzani told me. By the way, this professor is an amazing eccentric. A short, stocky man with prominent cheekbones, a thin nose, protruding lips, and small, sharp eyes. But you will recognize him better than from any description when you look at the portrait of Cagliostro engraved by Chodowiecki in some Berlin pocket calendar. That's exactly what Spalanzani is! The other day I was going up the stairs to see him and noticed that the curtain, which is usually drawn tightly over the glass door, had curled slightly and left a small crack. I don’t know how it happened, but I looked there with curiosity. In the room, in front of a small table, with her hands clasped together on it, sat a tall, very slender, proportionate in all proportions, beautifully dressed girl. She sat opposite the door, so I could get a good look at her angelic face. She didn’t seem to notice me, in general there was some kind of numbness in her eyes, I could even say they lacked visual power, as if she was sleeping with her eyes open. I felt uneasy, and I quietly crept into the auditorium located nearby. Afterwards I learned that the girl I saw was the daughter of Spalanzani, named Olympia; he keeps her locked up with such astonishing severity that not a single person dares to penetrate her. In the end, there is some important circumstance hidden here, perhaps she is weak-minded or has some other defect. But why am I writing to you about all this? I could tell you all this better and more thoroughly in words. Know that in two weeks I will be with you. I absolutely must see my lovely, gentle angel, my Clara. Then the bad mood that (I confess) almost took possession of me after her ill-fated, judicious letter will dissipate, which is why I do not write to her today.

I bow countless times, etc., etc.

It is impossible to imagine anything more strange and amazing than what happened to my poor friend, the young student Nathanael, and what I am now going to tell you about, indulgent reader. Have you, gentle reader, ever experienced something that completely took over your heart, feelings and thoughts, crowding out everything else? Everything in you is seething and bubbling, inflamed blood boils in your veins and fills your cheeks with a hot blush. Your gaze is strange, it seems to catch images in the void that are invisible to others, and your speech is lost in unclear sighs. And so your friends ask you: “What is wrong with you, most respected? What is your concern, dearest?” And with all the fiery colors, all the shadows and light, you want to convey the visions that have arisen in you and you are trying to find words in order to even begin to tell the story. But it seems to you that from the very first word you must imagine all the wonderful, magnificent, scary, funny, terrifying things that happened to you, and strike everyone as if with an electric shock. However, every word, everything that our speech has, seems colorless, cold and dead to you. And you keep searching and catching, stuttering and babbling, and the sober questions of your friends, like an icy breath of wind, cool the heat of your soul until it goes out completely. But if you, like a bold painter, first outline the outline of your inner vision with daring strokes, then you can easily apply more and more fiery colors, and a living swarm of motley images will captivate your friends, and together with you they will see themselves in the middle of the picture that arose in your soul. I must confess, kind reader, that no one actually asked me about the story of young Nathanael; but you know very well that I belong to that amazing breed of authors who, when they carry in themselves something like what was just described, immediately imagine that everyone they meet, and the whole world, is just asking: “What is it?” ? Tell me, my dear!” And now I am irresistibly drawn to talk to you about the ill-fated life of Nathanael. Its strangeness, its unusualness struck my soul, and for this reason - and also so that I could - oh my reader! - to immediately persuade you to understand all the wonderful things, of which there is quite a bit, - I tried with all my might to begin the story of Nathanael as cleverly as possible - more original, more captivating. “Once upon a time” is the most beautiful beginning for any story - too ordinary! “In a small provincial town S... lived” is somewhat better, at least it gives the beginning of a gradation. Or immediately through “medias in res”[*]: “Get to hell,” cried the student Nathanael, and rage and horror were reflected in his wild gaze, when the barometer salesman Giuseppe Coppola...” That’s how I would really start, when I thought that there was something funny in the wild gaze of the student Nathanael, but this story is not at all funny. Not a single phrase came to mind that even slightly reflected the rainbow radiance of the image that appeared before my inner gaze. I decided not to start at all. So, kind reader, take these three letters, which my friend Lothar willingly gave me, as the outline of a picture on which, as I narrate, I will try to apply more and more colors. Perhaps I will be lucky, like a good portrait painter, to capture other faces so accurately that you will find them similar without knowing the original, and it will even seem to you that you have already seen these people with your own eyes more than once. And perhaps then, O my reader, you will believe that there is nothing more amazing and crazy than real life itself, and that the poet can only imagine its vague reflection, as if in a rough-polished mirror.

[* “Straight to the point” [lat.].]

In order to immediately say everything that needs to be known from the very beginning, it should be added to the previous letters that soon after the death of Nathanael’s father, Clara and Lothar, the children of a distant relative, who also recently died and left them orphans, were accepted into the family by Nathanael’s mother. Clara and Nathanael felt a lively inclination towards each other, which not a single person in the world could object to; they were already engaged when Nathanael left the city to continue his studies in the sciences in G. As can be seen from his last letter, he is now there and listening to lectures from the famous professor of physics Spalanzani.

Now I could calmly continue my story. But at this moment the image of Clara appears so vividly in my imagination that I cannot take my eyes off it, as it always happens to me when she looks at me with a sweet smile. Clara could not be called beautiful; This was the consensus of everyone who, according to their position, had an understanding of beauty. But the architects spoke with praise of the pure proportions of her figure, the painters found that her back, shoulders and chest were formed, perhaps, too chastely, but they were all captivated by her wonderful hair, like that of Mary Magdalene, and chatted endlessly about the coloring of Battoni. And one of them, a true science fiction writer, made a strange comparison, likening Clara’s eyes to Ruisdael’s lake, in the mirror surface of which the azure of a cloudless sky, forests and flowering pastures, the whole living, motley, rich, cheerful landscape are reflected. But poets and virtuosos went even further, assuring: “What a lake there is, what a mirror-like surface there is! Have we ever seen this maiden without her gaze shining with the most wonderful heavenly harmony penetrating our soul, so that everything in it awakens and comes to life? If even then we don’t sing anything worthwhile, then we will be of little use at all, and we can clearly read this in the subtle smile that flashes on Clara’s lips when we decide to squeak in front of her something that claims to be called singing, although it is just incoherent and randomly jumping sounds." And so it was. Clara was endowed with a lively and strong imagination, like a cheerful, spontaneous child, she had a woman's heart, tender and sensitive, and a very insightful mind. Thinking and philosophizing heads were not successful with her, for Clara’s bright gaze and the aforementioned subtle ironic smile, without unnecessary words, which were not at all characteristic of her silent nature, seemed to tell them: “Dear friends! How can you demand from me that I consider the blurry shadows you created to be genuine figures, full of life and movement?” That is why many reproached Clara for her coldness, insensitivity and matter-of-factness; but others, whose understanding of life was distinguished by clarity and depth, loved this warm-hearted, reasonable, trusting girl, like a child, but no one loved her more than Nathanael, who cheerfully and zealously practiced the sciences and arts. Clara was devoted to Nathanael with all her soul. The first shadows darkened her life when he was separated from her. With what admiration she threw herself into his arms when he, as he promised in his last letter to Lothar, finally and truly returned to his hometown and entered his parents' house. Nathanael's hopes came true; for from the moment he met Clara, he no longer remembered either her philosophical letter or the lawyer Coppelius; the bad mood was completely eradicated.

However, Nathanael was right when he wrote to his friend Lothar that the image of the disgusting barometer salesman Coppola had perniciously penetrated his life. Everyone felt this, for from the first days of his stay Nathanael showed a complete change in his entire being. He plunged into a gloomy reverie and indulged in it with such strangeness that had never been noticed in him. His whole life consisted of dreams and premonitions. He constantly said that every person, imagining himself free, only serves the terrible game of dark forces; It will be in vain to resist them; one must humbly endure what is destined by fate itself. He went even further, arguing that it is very unreasonable to believe that in art and science one can create according to one’s own will, for inspiration, without which it is impossible to produce anything, is born not from our soul, but from the influence of some higher principle lying outside of us.

The sensible Clara was extremely disgusted by all these mystical nonsense, but all efforts to refute them, apparently, were in vain. Only when Nathanael began to prove that Conpelius was the evil principle that had possessed him from the moment he eavesdropped behind the curtain, and that this disgusting demon could terribly confuse their love happiness, Clara suddenly became very serious and said:

- Yes, Nathanael! You are right. Coppelius is an evil, hostile principle; he, like the devilish force that has clearly penetrated into our lives, can produce the most terrible effect, but only if you do not purge him from your mind and heart. As long as you believe in him, he exists and has an effect on you; only your faith constitutes his power.

Nathanael, angry that Clara allowed the existence of a demon only in his own soul, began to present a whole doctrine about the devil and dark forces, but Clara, much to his chagrin, interrupted him with displeasure with some insignificant remark. He believed that cold, insensitive souls were not given the ability to comprehend such deep secrets, however, not realizing that he included Clara among such base natures, he did not give up trying to introduce her to these secrets. Early in the morning, when Clara was helping prepare breakfast, he stood next to her and read to her all kinds of mystical books, so that Clara finally said:

- Oh, dear Nathanael, what if I decide to call you an evil principle that has a detrimental effect on my coffee? After all, if I drop everything and start listening to you without taking my eyes off, as you wish, then the coffee will certainly run away and everyone will be left without breakfast!

Nathanael hastily slammed the book shut and ran into his room in anger. Previously, he was especially good at composing funny, lively stories, which Clara listened to with unfeigned pleasure; now his creations had become gloomy, incomprehensible, formless, and although Clara, sparing him, did not talk about it, he still easily guessed how little they pleased her. Nothing was more intolerable to her than boredom; an irresistible mental drowsiness was immediately revealed in her looks and speeches. Nathanael's writings were indeed extremely boring. His annoyance at Clara's cold, prosaic disposition increased every day; Clara also could not overcome her displeasure with the dark, gloomy, boring mysticism of Nathanael, and thus, unnoticed by them, their hearts became more and more divided. The image of the disgusting Coppelius, as Nathanael admitted to himself, faded in his imagination, and it often cost him considerable effort to vividly imagine him in his poems, where he acted as a terrible fate. Finally, he decided to make the subject of the poem his dark premonition that Coppelius would confuse his love happiness. He imagined himself united with Clara with eternal love, but from time to time, as if a black hand invades their lives and steals one after another the joys bestowed upon them. Finally, when they are already standing in front of the altar, the terrible Coppelius appears and touches Clara’s lovely eyes; like bloody sparks, they penetrate Nathanael's chest, scorching and burning. Coppelius grabs him and throws him into a flaming circle of fire, which spins with the speed of a whirlwind and carries him along with a noise and roar. Everything howls, as if an evil hurricane is furiously scourging the boiling sea walls, rising like black, gray-headed giants. But in the midst of this wild rage, Clara’s voice is heard: “Aren’t you able to look at me? Coppelius deceived you, it was not my eyes that scorched your chest, it was the burning drops of the blood of your own heart - my eyes are intact, look at me!” Nathanael thinks: “This is Clara - and I am devoted to her forever!” And it’s as if this thought bursts into the circle of fire with irresistible force; it stops rotating, and a dull roar fades into the black abyss. Nathanael looks into Clara's eyes; but it is death itself that looks kindly at him through the eyes of its beloved.

In writing this, Nathanael was very reasonable and calm, he honed and improved every line, and since he subordinated himself to the metrical canons, he did not calm down until his verse reached complete purity and euphony. But when his work came to an end and he read his poems aloud, sudden fear and trembling seized him, and he cried out in a frenzy: “Whose terrifying voice is this?” Soon it seemed to him again that this was just a very successful poetic work, and he decided that it should ignite Clara’s cold soul, although he could not give himself a clear understanding of why, in fact, it was necessary to ignite her and where it would lead if he began to languish her terrifying images, which foreshadow a terrible and destructive fate for her love.

Nathanael and Clara were sitting one day in a small garden near the house; Clara was cheerful, because Nathanael did not torment her with his dreams and premonitions for three whole days, which he spent writing poetry. Nathanael, as before, spoke with great liveliness and joy about various cheerful subjects, so Clara said:

“Well, finally, you’re completely mine again, do you see how we drove away that vile Coppelius?”

But then Nathanael remembered that he had poems in his pocket that he intended to read to her. He immediately took out his notebook and began to read; Clara, as usual, expecting something boring, began to knit with patient resignation. But when the dark clouds began to thicken more and more, Clara dropped the stocking from her hands and looked intently into Nathanael’s eyes. He continued to read uncontrollably, his cheeks glowed from internal heat, tears flowed from his eyes - finally he finished, groaning from deep exhaustion, took Clara’s hand and sighed, as if in inconsolable grief: “Ah! Clara! Clara!" Clara tenderly pressed him to her chest and said quietly, but firmly and seriously:

“Nathanael, my beloved Nathanael, throw this absurd, absurd, extravagant tale into the fire.”

Then Nathanael jumped up and, passionately, pushing Clara away from him, shouted:

- You soulless, damned automaton!

He ran away; the deeply offended Clara burst into bitter tears. “Oh, he never, never loved me, he doesn’t understand me!” - she exclaimed loudly, sobbing. Lothar entered the gazebo; Clara was forced to tell him everything that happened; he loved his sister with all his heart, every word of her complaint, like a spark, ignited his soul, so that the displeasure that he had long harbored against the dreamy Nathanael turned into furious anger. He ran after him and began to cruelly reproach him for his reckless act, to which the hot-tempered Nathanael answered him with the same fervor. The “extravagant, mad jester” was repaid in the name of a low, pitiful, ordinary soul. The fight was inevitable. They decided the next morning to meet outside the garden and exchange words with each other, according to the local academic custom, on sharply sharpened short rapiers. Gloomy and silent, they wandered around; Clara heard their argument and noticed that at dusk the fencing master brought rapiers. She foresaw what was going to happen. Arriving at the place of the duel, Nathanael and Lothar, still in the same gloomy silence, threw off their outer dress and, sparkling with their eyes, were ready to attack each other with bloodthirsty fury, when, opening the garden gate, Clara rushed towards them. Sobbing, she exclaimed:

- Furious, rabid madmen! Stab me before you fight! How can I live in the world when my beloved kills my brother or my brother kills his beloved!

Lothar lowered his weapon and lowered his eyes in silence, but in Nathanael’s soul, along with a consuming melancholy, the old love that he felt for the lovely Clara in the carefree days of his youth was revived. He dropped the deadly weapon and fell at Clara's feet.

“Will you ever forgive me, my Clara, my only love?” Will you forgive me, my dear brother Lothar?

Lothar was touched by his deep sorrow. Reconciled, all three hugged each other and vowed to forever remain in unceasing love and fidelity.

It seemed to Nathanael that an immense weight had been lifted from him, pressing him to the ground, and that, by rebelling against the dark force that had taken possession of him, he had saved his entire being, which was threatened with destruction. He spent three more blissful days with his beloved friends, then went to G., where he planned to stay for another year, and then return to his hometown forever.

Everything that had to do with Coppelius was hidden from Nathanael’s mother, because they knew that she could not remember without a shudder the man whom she, like Nathanael, considered guilty of the death of her husband.

Imagine Nathanael’s surprise when, heading towards his apartment, he saw that the entire house had burned down and only bare charred walls were sticking out from under a pile of rubbish. Despite the fact that the fire started in the laboratory of the pharmacist who lived on the ground floor, and the house began to burn out from below, Nathanael’s brave and determined friends managed to get into his room, which was located under the very roof, in time and saved his books, manuscripts and instruments. Everything was transferred completely intact to another house, where they rented a room and where Nathanael immediately moved. He did not attach much importance to the fact that he now lived just opposite Professor Spalanzani, and in the same way it did not seem at all strange to him when he noticed that from his window he could see the room where Olympia often sat alone, so that he could clearly distinguish her figure, although her facial features remained vague and unclear. True, he was finally surprised that Olympia remained for hours in the same position in which he had once seen her through the glass door; doing nothing, she sat at a small table, constantly fixing her motionless gaze on him; he had to admit that he had never seen such a beautiful figure; meanwhile, keeping the image of Clara in his heart, he remained completely indifferent to the stiff and motionless Olympia and only occasionally cast an absent-minded glance over the compendium at this beautiful statue, and that was all. And then one day, when he was writing a letter to Clara, there was a soft knock on his door; At his invitation to enter, the door opened and the disgusting head of Coppelius poked forward. Nathanael shuddered in his heart, but, remembering what Spalanzani told him about his fellow countryman Coppola and what he himself had sacredly promised to his beloved regarding the Sandman Coppelius, he was ashamed of his childish fear of ghosts, with an effort he overcame himself and said with possible meekness and calm:

- I don’t buy barometers, my dear, leave me alone!

But then Coppola completely entered the room and, twisting his huge mouth into a nasty smile, sparkling with small prickly eyes from under long gray eyelashes, said in a hoarse voice:

- Eh, not a barometer, not a barometer! - have good eyes - good eyes!

Nathanael cried out in horror:

- Madman, how can you sell your eyes? Eyes! Eyes!

But at that very moment Coppola put the barometers aside and, reaching into his large pocket, pulled out lorgnettes and glasses and began to lay them out on the table.

- Well, there you go, - glasses, put glasses on your nose, - here's my eye, - good eyes!

And he kept pulling out and pulling out glasses, so that soon the whole table began to shine and flicker strangely. Thousands of eyes looked at Nathanael, blinked and stared convulsively; and he himself could no longer take his eyes off the table; and Coppola posted more and more points; and these flaming eyes sparkled and jumped more and more terrible, and their bloody rays struck Nathanael’s chest. Seized with inexplicable trepidation, he shouted:

- Stop, stop, you terrible person!

He grabbed Coppola's hand tightly as he reached into his pocket to get more glasses, despite the fact that the entire table was already covered with them. With a nasty, hoarse laugh, Coppola quietly pulled away, saying:

- Ah, - not for you, - but the glass is good. “He grabbed all the glasses into a pile, hid them and took out from his side pocket many small and large telescopes. As soon as the glasses were put away, Nathanael completely calmed down and, remembering Clara, realized that this terrible ghost arose in his own soul, as well as the fact that Coppola was a very respectable mechanic and optician, and in no way a cursed double and a descendant of that Sveta Coppelius. Also, in all the instruments that Coppola laid out on the table, there was nothing special, at least as ghostly as in the glasses, and, in order to make up for everything, Nathanael decided to actually buy something from Coppola. So, he took a small pocket telescope of very skillful workmanship and, to try it, looked out of the window. In all his life he had never come across glass that brought objects closer so accurately, purely and clearly. Involuntarily he looked into Spalanzani's room; Olympia, as usual, was sitting at a small table, with her hands on it and her fingers intertwined. It was only then that Nathanael saw the wondrous beauty of her face. Only his eyes seemed strangely motionless and dead to him. But the more closely he peered into the spyglass, the more it seemed to him that Olympia’s eyes were emitting a moist moonlight. It was as if visual power had only now been ignited in them; Her gaze became more and more alive. Nathanael stood spellbound at the window, constantly contemplating the heavenly beautiful Olympia. The coughing and shuffling that was heard near him woke him up as if from a deep sleep. Coppola stood behind him: “Tre zechini - three ducats.” Nathanael completely forgot about the optician; he hastily paid what he demanded.

- Well, how is the glass good? Is the glass good? - Coppola asked with an insidious grin in a vile, hoarse voice.

- Yes Yes Yes! - Nathanael answered annoyedly.

- Adieu, my dear. — Coppola walked away, never ceasing to cast strange sidelong glances at Nathanael. Nathanael heard him laughing loudly on the stairs. “Well,” he decided, “he’s laughing at me because I paid too much for this little telescope - I paid too much!” When he whispered these words, a chilling, deep, dying sigh was heard in the room; Nathanael's breath caught in his throat from the horror that filled him. But it was he who sighed like that, as he immediately convinced himself. “Clara,” he finally said to himself, “rightly considers me an absurd spirit seer, but isn’t it stupid—ah, more than stupid—that the absurd thought that I overpaid Coppola for glass still strangely worries me; I don't see any reason for this." And so he sat down at the table to finish the letter to Clara, but, looking out the window, he was convinced that Olympia was still in the same place, and at that very moment, as if urged by an irresistible force, he jumped up, grabbed Coppola’s spyglass and could no longer He could no longer look away from the seductive appearance of Olympia until his friend and sworn brother Sigmund came for him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture. The curtain that hid the fatal room was tightly drawn; neither this time nor in the next two days he could see Olympia either here or in her room, although he almost did not look up from the window and constantly looked into Coppola’s telescope. On the third day, even the windows were curtained. Full of despair, driven by melancholy and fiery desire, he ran out of town. The image of Olympia hovered in the air before him, protruding from behind the bushes, and with large bright eyes looked at him from a transparent spring. The image of Clara was completely erased from his heart; Thinking of nothing else but Olympia, he moaned loudly and sadly: “O beautiful, mountainous star of my love, have you really risen only to immediately disappear again and leave me in the darkness of a disconsolate night?”

Returning home, Nathanael noticed noisy movement in Professor Spalanzani's house. The doors were wide open, all kinds of furniture were brought in; the frames of the first-floor windows were exposed, busy maids scurried back and forth, sweeping the floor and brushing away dust with long hair brushes. The carpenters and upholsterers filled the house with the sound of hammers. Nathanael stopped in complete amazement in the middle of the street; Then Sigmund approached him and asked with a laugh:

- Well, what can you say about old Spalanzani?

Nathanael replied that he absolutely could not say anything, because he knew nothing about the professor, moreover, he could not wonder why such a commotion and turmoil had arisen in such a quiet, unsociable house; then he learned from Sigmund that Spalanzani was giving tomorrow big celebration, a concert and a ball and that half the university was invited. There was a rumor that Spalanzani would show his daughter for the first time, whom he had so long and fearfully hidden from prying eyes.

Nathanael found an invitation card and at the appointed hour, with his heart beating strongly, he went to the professor, when the carriages had already begun to arrive and the decorated halls were shining with lights. The meeting was numerous and brilliant. Olympia appeared in a rich outfit, chosen with great taste. It was impossible not to admire the beautiful features of her face and her figure. Her somewhat strangely arched back, her wasp-thin waist, seemed to come from too much lacing. Some kind of regularity and rigidity was noticeable in her posture and gait, which unpleasantly surprised many; this was attributed to the pressure she felt in society. The concert has begun. Olympia played the piano with the greatest fluency, and also sang one bravura aria in a clear, almost harsh voice, like a crystal bell. Nathanael was beside himself with delight; he stood in the very last row, and the dazzling shine of the candles did not allow him to get a good look at the singer’s features. So he quietly took out Coppola's telescope and began to look through it at the beautiful Olympia. Ah, then he noticed with what longing she looked at him, how every sound first appeared in a gaze full of love, which ignited his soul. The most skillful roulades seemed to Nathanael to be the rejoicing of a soul, enlightened by love, ascending to the sky, and when at the end of the cadence a long ringing trill scattered across the hall, as if fiery arms had suddenly encircled him, he could no longer control himself and, in a frenzy of delight and pain, he cried out loudly: "Olympia!" Everyone turned to him, many laughed. The cathedral organist took on an even more gloomy look and said only: “Well, well!” The concert ended and the ball began. “Dance with her! with her! This was the goal of all thoughts, all desires of Nathanael; but how can one find enough audacity to invite her, the queen of the ball? But still! When the dancing began, he, without knowing how, found himself next to Olympia, whom no one had yet invited, and, barely able to stammer a few inaudible words, took her hand. Olympia's hand was as cold as ice; he shuddered, feeling the terrifying cold of death; he looked intently into her eyes, and they lit up for him with love and desire, and at the same moment it seemed to him that a pulse began to beat in the veins of her cold hand and living hot blood began to boil in them. And now Nathanael’s soul was even more aflame with love; he embraced the body of the beautiful Olympia and rushed off with her in a dance. Until now, he believed that he always danced to the beat, but the peculiar rhythmic firmness with which Olympia danced rather confused him, and he soon noticed how little he kept to the beat. However, he did not want to dance with any other woman anymore and was ready to immediately kill anyone who came up to invite Olympia. But this happened only twice, and, to his amazement, Olympia, when the dancing began, remained in place each time, and he never tired of inviting her again and again. If Nathanael could see anything other than the beautiful Olympia, then some annoying quarrel and altercation would inevitably happen, for, there is no doubt, the quiet, barely restrained laughter that arose in the corners among the young people referred to the beautiful Olympia, on which they, for some unknown reason, kept turning curious gazes to. Inflamed by dancing and drinking plenty of wine, Nathanael cast aside his natural shyness. He sat next to Olympia and, without letting go of her hand, spoke with the greatest ardor and inspiration about his love in terms that no one could understand - neither he himself nor Olympia. However, she, perhaps, understood, for she did not take her eyes off him and sighed every minute: “Ah-ah-ah!”

In response, Nathanael said:

- O beautiful heavenly maiden! You are a ray from the promised other world of love! In the crystal depths of your soul my entire existence is reflected! - and many other similar words, to which Olympia always answered only: “Ah-ah!” Professor Spalanzani walked past the happy lovers several times and, looking at them, smiled with some strange satisfaction. Meanwhile, Nathanael, although he was in a completely different world, suddenly felt that it had become darker in Professor Spalanzani’s chambers; he looked around and, to his considerable horror, saw that in the empty hall the last two candles were burning down and were about to go out. The music and dancing stopped long ago. “Separation, separation!” - he cried in confusion and despair. He kissed Olympia's hand, he leaned towards her lips, ice-cold lips met his flaming ones! And then he felt horror take possession of him, just as when he touched Olympia’s cold hand; the legend of the dead bride suddenly came to his mind; but Olympia pressed him tightly to her, and it seemed that the kiss filled her lips with life-giving warmth. Professor Spalanzani walked slowly around the empty hall; his steps were echoed loudly, unsteady shadows slid over his figure, giving him a terrifying, ghostly appearance.

- Do you love me? Do you love me, Olympia? Just one word! Do you love me? - Nathanael whispered to her, but Olympia, getting up from her seat, only sighed: “Ah-ah!”

“O beautiful, benevolent star of my love,” said Nathanael, “you have risen for me and will forever shine and transform my soul with your light!”

- Ahah! - answered Olympia, walking away. Nathanael followed her; they found themselves in front of the professor.

“You had an unusually lively conversation with my daughter,” he said, smiling, “well, dear Mr. Nathanael, if you find pleasure in conversing with this timid girl, I will always be glad to see you at my place!”

Nathanael left, carrying the vast shining sky in his heart.

All next days the holiday of Spalanpani was the subject of urban gossip. And although the professor made every effort to show off his pomp and splendor, there were still scoffers who were able to talk about all sorts of oddities and absurdities that were noticed at the festival, and especially attacked the numb, silent Olympia, who, despite her beautiful appearance, was accused of complete stupidity, for which reason Spalanzani hid it for so long. Nathanael listened to these discussions not without hidden anger, but he was silent; for, he thought, is it worth the trouble to prove to these Burshes that their own stupidity prevents them from knowing the deep, beautiful soul of Olympia.

“Do me a favor, brother,” Sigmund asked him one day, “do me a favor and tell me how you managed to fall in love with this wooden doll, this wax figure?”

Nathanael almost became angry, but immediately came to his senses and answered:

“Tell me, Sigmund, how could the unearthly charms of Olympia escape from your impressionable soul, from your clairvoyant eyes, always open to everything beautiful?” But therefore - let us thank fate for this! - you did not become my rival; for then one of us must fall bleeding.

Sigmund immediately saw how far his friend had gone, skillfully changed the conversation and, noting that in love one can never judge the subject, added:

“However, it is surprising that many of us have approximately the same opinion about Olympia. She appeared to us - don't complain, brother! - somehow strangely constrained and soulless. It’s true, her figure is proportionate and correct, just like her face! She could be considered a beauty if her gaze were not so lifeless, I would even say, devoid of visual power. There is some amazing regularity in her step, every movement seems to be subordinated to the movement of the wheels of the winding mechanism. In her playing, in her singing, the unpleasantly regular, soulless tact of a singing machine is noticeable; the same can be said about her dancing. We felt uneasy from the presence of this Olympia, and we really didn’t want to have anything to do with her, it still seemed to us that she was only acting like a living being, but there was some special circumstance hidden here.

Nathanael did not give free rein to the bitter feeling that overcame him after Sigmund’s words; he overcame his annoyance and only said with great seriousness:

“It may turn out that you, cold prose writers, are uncomfortable with Olympia’s presence.” But only the soul of the poet reveals itself to an organization similar in nature! Only her loving gaze shines on me, penetrating all my feelings and thoughts with radiance; only in Olympia’s love do I find myself again. You may not like the fact that she does not indulge in empty chatter, like other superficial souls. She is not eloquent, it is true, but her meager words serve as genuine hieroglyphs of the inner world, filled with love and the highest comprehension of spiritual life through the contemplation of the eternal otherworldly existence. However, you are deaf to all this, and my words are in vain.

- May God protect you, dear brother! - said Sigmund with great tenderness, almost mournfully, - but it seems to me that you are on a bad path. Rely on me when everything... - no, I can’t say anything more!..

Nathanael suddenly felt that the cold, prosaic Sigmund was unfeignedly devoted to him, and with great cordiality he shook the hand extended to him.

Nathanael completely forgot that Clara, whom he once loved, existed in the world; mother, Lothar - everything was erased from his memory, he lived only for Olympia and spent several hours every day with her, talking about his love, about awakened sympathy, about mental selective affinity, and Olympia listened to him with constant favor. From the farthest corners of his desk, Nathanael raked out everything he had ever written. Poems, fantasies, visions, novels, stories multiplied day by day, and all this, mixed with all sorts of chaotic sonnets, stanzas and canzones, he tirelessly read Olympia for hours on end. But he had never had such a diligent listener before. She didn’t knit or embroider, didn’t look out the window, didn’t feed the birds, didn’t play with the lap dog or her favorite cat, didn’t twirl a piece of paper or anything else in her hands, didn’t try to hide her yawning with a quiet feigned cough - in a word, whole for hours, without moving from her place, without moving, she looked into the eyes of her lover, not taking her motionless gaze off him, and this gaze became more and more fiery, more and more alive. Only when Nathanael finally got up from his seat and kissed her hand, and sometimes on the lips, did she sigh: “Ax-ax!” - and added:

- Good night, my dear!

- O beautiful, indescribable soul! - exclaimed Nathanael, return to your room, - only you, only you alone deeply understand me!

He trembled with inner delight when he thought about the amazing consonance of their souls that was revealed every day; for it seemed to him that Olympia drew judgment about his creations, about his poetic gift from the innermost depths of his soul, as if his own inner voice had sounded. So it must be assumed that it was; for Olympia never uttered any other words except those mentioned above. But if Nathanael, in bright, thoughtful moments, such as in the morning, immediately after waking up, remembered Olympia’s complete passivity and taciturnity, he still said: “What do words, words mean! The look of her heavenly eyes speaks to me more than any language on earth! And can a child of heaven fit himself into the narrow circle outlined by our pitiful earthly needs? Professor Spalanzani seemed extremely pleased with his daughter's relationship with Nathanael; he unequivocally showed him every sign of favor, and when Nathanael finally dared to bluntly express his desire to become engaged to Olympia, the professor broke into a smile and announced that he was giving his daughter a free choice. Encouraged by these words, with a fiery desire in his heart, Nathanael decided the very next day to beg Olympia with all frankness, in clear words, to tell him what her beautiful, loving gaze had long ago revealed to him - that she wanted to belong to him forever. He began to look for the ring that his mother gave him when they parted, in order to present it to Olympia as a symbol of his devotion, the emerging blossoming life together. Letters from Clara and Lothar fell into his hands; he indifferently threw them away, found the ring, put it on his finger and flew to Olympia. Already on the stairs, already in the hallway, he heard an extraordinary noise, which seemed to be coming from Spalanzani’s study. Stomping, ringing, pushing, dull knocks on the door mixed with swearing and curses. “Let me go, let me go, you dishonest villain! I put my whole life into it! - Ha-ha-ha-ha! - There was no such agreement! - I, I made the eyes! - And I am the clockwork mechanism! - You're a blockhead with your mechanism! - Damn dog, brainless watchmaker! - Get out! - Satan! - Stop! Day laborer! Kanaglia! - Stop! - Get out! - Let me go! Those were the voices of Spalanzani and the disgusting Coppelius, thundering and raging, drowning each other out. Nathanael, gripped by inexplicable fear, rushed towards them. The professor was holding a female figure by the shoulders, the Italian Coppola was pulling her by the legs, both were dragging and tugging in different directions, trying with furious bitterness to take possession of her. Nathanael recoiled in unspeakable horror, recognizing Olympia; inflamed with insane anger, he wanted to rush to the raging people in order to take away his beloved; but at that very moment Coppola, with superhuman strength, tore the figure out of Spalanzani’s hands and dealt it to the professor with such a cruel blow that he staggered and fell backwards on a table filled with vials, retorts, bottles and glass cylinders; all these utensils shattered into pieces with a clang. And so Coppola hoisted the figure onto his shoulders and, with a vile, shrill laugh, hurriedly ran down the stairs, so that one could hear Olympia’s disgustingly dangling legs beating and clattering down the steps with a wooden thud.

Nathanael was numb - he now saw too clearly that Olympia’s deathly pale waxen face was devoid of eyes, in their place there were two black hollows: she was a lifeless doll. Spalanzani writhed on the floor, glass shards injured his head, chest and arm, blood flowed in streams. But he gathered all his strength.

- In pursuit - in pursuit - why are you delaying? Coppelius, Coppelius, he stole from me best machine gun... I worked on it for twenty years - I put my whole life into it; the winding mechanism, speech, movement - everything is mine. Eyes, eyes he stole from you! Damn you villain! In pursuit!.. Give me back Olympia... Here are your eyes!

And then Nathanael saw bloody eyes on the floor, fixing a motionless gaze on him; Spalaitsani grabbed them with his uninjured hand and threw them at him, so that they hit his chest. And then madness let its fiery claws into him and penetrated his soul, tearing apart his thoughts and feelings. “Live, live, live, - spin, circle of fire, spin, - have fun, have fun, doll, beautiful doll, - live, - spin, spin!” And he rushed at the professor and squeezed his throat. He would have strangled him if many people had not come running at the noise, burst into the house and, dragging the frantic Nathanael away, saved the professor and bandaged his wounds. Sigmund, no matter how strong he was, could not control the raging man; Nathanael incessantly shouted in a terrible voice: “Doll, spin, spin!” - and blindly beat around himself with his fists. Finally, with the combined efforts of several people, they managed to overcome him; he was thrown to the floor and tied up. His speech turned into a terrifying animal howl. So the frantic and disgustingly raging Nathanael was transported to a madhouse.

Gentle reader, before I continue my story of what happened next to the unfortunate Nathanael, I can, if you took some part in the skilled mechanic and master of automata Spalanzani, assure you that he was completely cured of his wounds. However, he was forced to leave the university, because Nathanael’s story aroused everyone’s attention and everyone considered it a completely unacceptable deception to smuggle a wooden doll into sensible, well-meaning social gatherings at the tea table instead of a living person (Olympia successfully attended such tea parties). Lawyers even called this a particularly skillful forgery and worthy of severe punishment, for it was directed against the entire society and set up with such cunning that not a single person (with the exception of some very astute students) noticed it, although now everyone shook their heads and referred to various circumstances that seemed very suspicious to them. But, to tell the truth, they didn’t find anything worthwhile. Could anyone, for example, have found it suspicious that Olympia, according to one elegant tea-drinker[*], contrary to all decency, sneezed more often than she yawned? This, the dandy believed, was the self-winding of a hidden mechanism, which was why a crackling sound was clearly heard, etc. The professor of poetry and eloquence, taking a pinch of tobacco, slammed the snuffbox, cleared his throat and said solemnly: “Honorable gentlemen and ladies! Haven't you noticed what the problem is? All this is an allegory - a continuation of the metaphor. Do you understand me! Sapienti sat!” [**] However, such explanations did not reassure most of the highly respected gentlemen; the story about the machine gun sank deep into their souls, and a disgusting distrust of human faces was instilled in them. Many lovers, in order to make sure that they were not captivated by a wooden doll, demanded that their beloved sing slightly out of tune and dance out of tune, that when they were read aloud, they knit, embroider, play with a lap dog, etc. etc., and most of all, so that they not only listen, but sometimes speak themselves, so that their speech really expresses thoughts and feelings. For many, love relationships strengthened and became more intimate, while others, on the contrary, calmly separated. “Truly, you can’t vouch for anything,” said first one and then the other. During the tea party, everyone yawned incredibly and no one sneezed, in order to avert any suspicion. Spalanzani, as already mentioned, was forced to leave in order to avoid judicial investigation in the case of “the fraudulent introduction of automata into society.” Coppola also disappeared.

[*Pun in the original: Teeist. - Ed.]

[** Enough for the wise! (lat.)]

Nathanael awoke as if from a deep, heavy sleep; he opened his eyes and felt an inexplicable joy enveloping him with tender heavenly warmth. He was lying on the bed in his room, in parental home, Clara bent over him, and his mother and Lothar stood nearby.

- Finally, finally, my beloved Nathanael, you have been healed of a serious illness - you are mine again! - this is what Clara said with heartfelt cordiality, hugging Nathanael.

Bright, hot tears of melancholy and delight flowed from his eyes, and he exclaimed with a groan:

- Clara!.. My Clara!

Sigmund, who had been faithfully caring for his friend all this time, entered the room. Nathanael extended his hand to him.

- Faithful friend and brother, you did not leave me!

All traces of insanity disappeared; Soon, under the care of his mother, lover, and friends, Nathanael completely recovered. Happiness visited their home again; the old, stingy uncle, from whom no inheritance was ever expected, died, refusing Nathanael's mother, in addition to a significant fortune, a small estate in a friendly area, not far from the city. They decided to move there: his mother, Nathanael, Clara, with whom he now decided to marry, and Lothar. Nathanael, more than ever, became soft and childishly warm-hearted, only now the heavenly pure, beautiful soul Clara. No one gave even the slightest hint that could remind him of the past. Only when Sigmund was leaving did Nathanael say to him:

- By God, brother, I was on a bad path, but an angel brought me to a bright path in time! Ah, it was Clara!

Sigmund did not allow him to continue, fearing that deeply wounding memories would flare up in him with blinding force. The time came when the four lucky ones had to move to their estate. Around noon they walked through the city. Made some purchases; the tall tower of the town hall cast a gigantic shadow over the market.

“Tell you what,” said Clara, “shouldn’t we go up to take another look at the surrounding mountains?”

No sooner said than done. Both Nathanael and Clara climbed the tower, the mother and the maid went home, and Lothar, not a big fan of climbing stairs, decided to wait for them below. And so the lovers stood hand in hand on the upper gallery of the tower, their gaze wandering in the misty forests, behind which blue mountains rose like gigantic cities.

“Look at this strange little gray bush, it seems to be moving right towards us,” said Clara.

Nathanael automatically put his hand in his pocket; he found Coppola's telescope, looked to the side... Clara was in front of him! And so the blood began to beat and boil in his veins - completely dead, he fixed his motionless gaze on Clara, but immediately a fiery stream, boiling and scattering fiery splashes, flooded his rotating eyes; he roared horribly, like a hunted animal, then jumped high and, interrupting himself with a disgusting laugh, shouted piercingly: “Doll, doll, spin around! Doll, spin, spin!” - he grabbed Clara with frantic force and wanted to throw her down, but Clara, in despair and in mortal fear, tightly grabbed the railing. Lothar heard the fury of the madman, heard Clara's heart-rending cry; a terrible premonition seized him, he rushed headlong upstairs; the door to the second gallery was locked; Clara's desperate cries became louder and louder. Unconscious with fear and rage, Lothar pushed the door with all his might, so that it swung open. Clara’s screams became increasingly muffled: “Help! save, save..." her voice died away. “She died - she was killed by a frenzied madman!” - Lothar shouted. The door to the upper gallery was also locked. Despair gave him incredible strength. He knocked the door off its hinges. Good God! Clara struggled in the arms of the madman, who threw her over the railing. She was clinging to the iron column of the gallery with only one hand. With the speed of lightning, Lothar grabbed his sister, pulled her to him and at the same instant hit the enraged Nathanael in the face with his fist, so that he recoiled, releasing his victim from his hands.

Lothar ran downstairs, carrying the unconscious Clara in his arms. She was saved. And so Nathanael began to rush around the gallery, jumping and shouting: “Circle of fire, spin, spin! Circle of fire, spin, spin! People began to come running to his wild cries; in the crowd loomed the lanky figure of the lawyer Coppelius, who had just returned to the city and immediately came to the market. They were going to climb the tower to tie up the madman, but Coppelius said with a laugh: “Ha-ha,” wait a little, he will come down on his own,” and began to look along with everyone. Suddenly Nathanael became motionless, as if numb, leaned down, saw Coppelius and with a piercing cry:

“Ah... Eyes! Nice eyes!..” - jumped over the railing.

When Nathanael fell onto the pavement with his head smashed, Coppelius disappeared into the crowd.

They say that many years later, in a remote area, Clara was seen sitting in front of a beautiful country house, hand in hand with her friendly husband, and two playful boys playing next to them. From this we can conclude that Clara finally found family happiness, which corresponded to her cheerful, cheerful disposition and which the confused Nathanael would never have given her.

E. T. A. Hoffman

P sand man

From the book "Night Stories"

Translation by M. Beketova

Nathanael Lotharu

You're all probably in great anxiety because I haven’t written for such a terribly long time. Mother is probably angry, and Clara might think that I’m rolling around here like cheese in butter, having fun and completely forgetting her angelic face, so deeply imprinted in my mind and heart. But this is not true at all. Every day and hourly I remember all of you, and in sweet dreams the friendly image of my dear Klarchen appears to me and her clear eyes smile at me as captivatingly as it happened when I came to you. Oh, how could I write to you in that torn, confused state of mind that still confuses all my thoughts?! Something terrible has entered my life! A vague premonition of a terrible disaster threatening me is approaching me like black shadows of clouds, through which not a single friendly ray of sunshine can penetrate. But I must finally tell you what happened to me. I know I should do this, but as I think about it, I immediately hear a crazy laugh echoing inside me. Ah, my dear Lothar! What can I do to at least make you feel that what happened to me a few days ago could really ruin my life? If you were here, you would see it yourself; but now you will obviously consider me a crazy seer. In short, the terrible thing that happened to me and made a murderous impression on me, which I am trying in vain to get rid of, is that a few days ago, namely on December 30 at midnight, a seller of barometers came to my room and offered me his goods. I didn't buy anything and threatened to throw him down the stairs, but he left on his own. You suspect that only very special circumstances, which deeply influenced my whole life, can give meaning to this incident and that the person of some unfortunate merchant could not have had such a detrimental effect on me. The way it is. I am gathering all my strength to calmly and patiently tell you much of what happened to me in early childhood, wanting all this in the most vivid images, clearly and accurately to appear before your living mind. But as I’m about to start, I hear you laughing, and Clara says: “But this is just childish!” Laugh, please, laugh at me with all your heart! I beg you! But, great God! My hair stands on end, as if I’m begging you to laugh at me in some kind of insane despair, like Daniel’s Franz Moor. But to the point! Apart from lunchtime, my sisters and I saw little of our father during the day. He was probably very busy with work. After dinner, which according to ancient custom was served at seven o’clock, we all went with my mother to his study and sat down at the round table. My father smoked tobacco and drank a large glass of beer. He often told us various amazing stories and became so excited that his pipe kept falling out of his mouth and going out, and I had to light it again and again, bringing the lit paper, and this amused me extraordinarily. Often, however, he would put picture books in our hands, while he sat in a chair, silent and motionless, spreading such thick clouds of smoke around him that we all seemed to be floating in a fog. On such evenings, the mother would be very sad and, as soon as nine o’clock struck, she would say: “Well, children! Sleep! Sleep! I feel that the sandman is already coming!” And I really heard heavy, slow footsteps on the stairs every time; This, right, was the sandman. One day these muffled steps seemed somehow especially ominous to me; I asked my mother, who was taking us to bed: “Mom, who is this evil sand man who always tears us away from dad? What does he look like?” - “Dear child,” answered the mother, “there really is no sand man. When I say that the sand man is coming, it means that you want to sleep and cannot open your eyes properly, as if they were covered with sand.” This answer did not satisfy me, in my childish brain the idea clearly formed that my mother did not tell the truth about the sandman only so that we would not be afraid of him - after all, I had heard him climb the stairs more than once. Burning with curiosity and wanting to know more about this sand man and how he treats children, I finally asked the old nanny who was looking after my little sister: “Who is this sand man?” “Eh, Tanelkhen,” she answered, “don’t you really know? This is an evil man who comes to children when they don’t want to go to bed, and throws whole handfuls of sand into their eyes, so that their eyes fill with blood.” and they fall out, and he puts them in a bag and takes them to the moon to feed his children; and they sit there in a nest, and they have such sharp beaks as owls, so that they can peck at the eyes of naughty children." The image of a terrible sandman was painted in my soul with terrible colors; When there was a noise on the stairs in the evening, I trembled all over with fear. Mother could get nothing out of me except convulsive sobs: “Sandman! Sandman!” After that, I hid in my bedroom, and most of the night I was tormented by terrible visions of the sandman. I was already old enough to understand that the story about the sandman and the nest on the moon that my nanny told me was not entirely believable, but the sandman remained, for me, a terrible ghost, and horror seized me when I heard, how he not only climbs the stairs, but also unceremoniously opens the door to my father and enters his room. At times he did not appear for a long time, but at other times he came often. This went on for many years, but I still could not get used to this ominous ghost, and the image of the terrible sandman did not fade in my imagination. His relationship with my father increasingly occupied my imagination. I didn’t dare ask my father about this - some kind of insurmountable timidity held me back, but still, over the years, the desire to penetrate into this secret and see the ill-fated sandman grew more and more in me. The Sandman awakened in me thoughts about the wonderful and mysterious, which already easily arise in a child’s soul. I loved nothing more than listening and reading scary stories about kobolds, witches, Thumb and so on, but in the first place was still the sandman, whom I drew in the most terrible and disgusting guises with chalk and charcoal everywhere. - on tables, cabinets and walls. When I was ten years old, my mother moved me out of the nursery and placed me in a small room located in the corridor not far from my father’s room. We still had to move quickly away as soon as nine o'clock struck and the approach of this stranger was heard. I heard from my little room how he entered his father's room, and soon after that a thin, strange-smelling smoke spread through the house. Along with my curiosity, my courage also increased: I definitely wanted to somehow meet the sandman. Often, after waiting for my mother to pass, I would slip out of my room into the corridor, but I could not hear anything, because the sandman was already outside the door when I reached the place from where I could see him. Finally, driven by an irresistible desire, I decided to hide in my father’s office and wait there for the sandman. One evening, from the silence of my father and the sad thoughtfulness of my mother, I realized that the sandman was about to come; so I, pretending to be very tired, left the room before nine o’clock and hid in the corner near the door. Soon the outer door creaked and slow, heavy, menacing footsteps headed towards the stairs. The mother hurriedly took the sisters away. Then I quietly opened the door to my father’s room. He sat, as usual, motionless and silent, with his back to the door. He didn’t notice me, and I quickly slipped into the room and hid behind the curtain that covered the open closet where my father’s dress hung. The steps sounded closer and closer, and behind the door someone was wheezing, coughing, grumbling and shuffling their feet. My heart beat with fear and anticipation. And then loud steps are heard right outside the door, then someone presses the doorknob with force and the door swings open noisily! Bracing myself with all my might, I carefully peek out from behind the curtain. The Sandman is standing in the middle of the room in front of my father, the bright glow of the candles falling on his face! The Sandman, the creepy sandman, is none other than the lawyer.Coppelius, who often dines with us! However, no most terrible vision could have evoked in me deeper horror than this very Coppelius. Imagine a tall, broad-shouldered man with a shapeless, large head, a sallow face, stubbly gray eyebrows from under which gray cat-like eyes sparkle, and a large, prominent nose hanging above his upper lip. His crooked mouth often folded into a mocking smile, and then two purple spots stood out on his cheeks and a strange, whistling sound came out from behind his clenched teeth. Coppelius always appeared in an old-fashioned ash-gray frock coat, the same vest and trousers, he wore black stockings and black shoes with buckles. A small wig barely covered the top of his head, the curls stuck out high above his large rat ears, and his wide wallet* lagged behind the back of his head, so that the silver clasp holding his neckerchief was visible. His whole figure was somehow especially disgusting; but what was most disgusting to us children were his hairy fists with large nails, so that for us everything he touched with them was spoiled. He noticed this and especially liked to grab, under some pretext, the cake or fruit that our kind mother was quietly putting on our plates; At the sight of this, tears came to our eyes and, out of disgust, we could not eat the delicacy that was supposed to please us. He did the same on holidays, when my father poured us a glass of sweet wine. He quickly grabbed the glass with his paws and even brought it to his blue lips and laughed with some kind of hellish laugh when we quietly sobbed, not daring to otherwise express our annoyance. He * Men's wig braiding net . always called us little animals; when he visited us, we did not dare to utter a sound and hated this ugly, evil man, who, of course, deliberately deprived us of our little joys. Mother, too, apparently, hated the nasty Coppelius no less than us: as soon as he appeared, all her fun and ease disappeared and she became sad, serious and gloomy. His father treated him as if he were a being of a higher order, from whom everything must be patiently endured and please him in every possible way. He allowed himself only timid remarks, and fine wines and the lawyer’s favorite dishes were served at the table. When I saw this Coppelius, my soul shuddered from the thought that no one else could be the sandman, but only this sandman was for me no longer a fairy-tale scarecrow who drags children's eyes into an owl's nest on the moon, no! - He was a terrifying, ghostly sorcerer who, wherever he comes, brings grief, misfortune, temporary and eternal death. I stood absolutely spellbound. Afraid of being discovered and, as I rightly believed, severely punished, I froze in place, sticking my head out from behind the curtain. The father greeted Coppelius respectfully. "Get to work!" - he exclaimed in a sharp, creaky voice and threw off his frock coat. The father silently and gloomily took off his robe, and both dressed in long, black robes. I didn't notice where they got them. My father opened the closet doors, and I saw that what I had always thought was a closet was, rather, a black recess where a small brazier stood. Coppelius came upTo this place, and a bluish flame soared above the brazier. There were some strange vessels around. Oh my God! When my old father bent over the fire, he took on a completely different appearance: as if a terrible convulsive pain had turned his soft, open features into an ugly, repulsive, devilish image. He looked like Coppelius! And the latter, with red-hot tongs, snatched shiny pieces of some substance from the thick smoke and zealously hit them with a hammer. It seemed to me that human faces were appearing around me, only without eyes - in their place there were deep black depressions. - Eyes here, eyes! - exclaimed Coppelius in a dull, threatening voice. I shuddered, seized by wild horror, and fell out of my ambush onto the floor. Coppelius grabbed me. - Animal! Beast! - he hissed, gnashing his teeth, then he picked me up and threw me onto the brazier, so that my hair was covered in heat. - Now we have eyes, eyes, beautiful children's eyes! - so muttered Coppelius and, taking a handful of hot coals in his hands, intended to throw them in my face. Then my father stretched out his hands to him and prayed: - Master! Master! Leave your eyes to my Nathanael! Coppelius laughed shrilly: “Okay, let the little one have his eyes and let him pay his lesson in this world, but let’s see what the mechanism of his arms and legs is.” Then he grabbed me so tightly that my joints cracked, and began to twist my arms and legs this way and that, giving them different positions. -- All wrong! It was better before! The old man knew his stuff! - Coppelius hissed. My vision went dark, terrible convulsions went through all my limbs, I didn’t feel anything anymore... Warm, gentle breath slid across my face, I woke up as if from a mortal sleep, my mother bent over me. “Is Sandman still here?” - I whispered. “No, my dear child, he left long, long ago and will not cause you any harm!” - answered the mother and began to kiss and caress the pet returned to her. But why bother you, dear Lothar? Why should I talk at length about this incident when there is so much more to tell you? So, my spying was revealed, and Coppelius punished me cruelly. From fear I developed a fever, in which I lay for many weeks. "Is Sandman still here?" - these were my first reasonable words, a sign of my recovery and salvation. Now I want to tell you about the terrible moment of my youth, and then you will be convinced that it is not because of the deterioration of my vision that everything seems colorless to me, that some dark force has cast a gloomy cloud cover over my life, which I will tear apart, perhaps , only with death. Coppelius did not appear again, they said that he left the city. About a year has passed. We all sat at a round table in the evening according to the old established custom. My father was very cheerful and told me a lot of funny things about the travels he had made in his youth. And when nine o'clock struck, we suddenly heard the hinges of the outer door creaking and heavy footsteps were heard on the stairs. “This is Coppelius,” said the mother, turning pale. “Yes, this is Coppelius,” repeated the father in a weak, tired voice. Tears flowed from the mother's eyes. - Does this absolutely have to be? - she exclaimed and rushed to her father. “For the last time,” answered the father, “for the last time he comes to me, I promise you!” Go get the kids! Go, go to sleep! Good night! It seemed to me that I had turned into a heavy, cold stone. My breathing stopped. Seeing that I was not moving, my mother took my hand: “Come on, Nathanael, let’s get out of here!” I allowed myself to be led away and entered my room. - Calm down, calm down, go to bed, sleep, sleep! - my mother said after me. But, tormented by indescribable fear and anxiety, I could not close my eyes. Hateful, disgusting Coppelius stood in front of me, flashing his eyes and laughing mockingly, and I tried in vain to drive his image away from me. It was probably already midnight when suddenly a terrible blow was heard, as if fired from some kind of gun. The whole house shook, something rattled outside my door, and the outside door swung open with a bang and then slammed shut. "It's Coppelius!" - I screamed in horror and jumped out of bed. Suddenly a heartbreaking scream was heard; I rushed into my father’s room, the door was wide open, choking smoke was pouring towards me, the maid shouted: - Oh, master! Master! On the floor in front of the smoking brazier lay my father, with a black, burnt and terribly distorted face; he was dead, his sisters were howling and screaming around him, his mother was lying in a faint. - Coppelius! Damned fiend of hell! You killed my father! - I screamed and fainted. When my father's body was laid in the coffin two days later, his facial features were as soft and meek as they had been during life. I thought with consolation that his connection with the hated Coppelius had not brought upon him eternal damnation. The explosion woke up the neighbors, this incident received publicity and became known to the police, who wanted to bring Coppelius to justice. But he disappeared without a trace. If I tell you now, my dear friend, that the seller of barometers was none other than the damned Coppelius, then you will not reproach me for considering this hostile invasion an omen of great misfortune. He was dressed differently, but the figure and face of Coppelius were too deeply etched in my memory for me to be mistaken. In addition, Coppelius almost did not change his name: he poses here as a Piedmontese mechanic and calls himself Giuseppe Coppola. I decided to deal with him and at all costs avenge the death of my father. Don’t tell your mother about the appearance of this terrible sorcerer. Bow to my sweet, lovely Clara, I will write to her when I calm down. Farewell and so on.

Clara to Nathanael .

Nathanael Lotharu

I am very unpleasant that Clara printed out and read my last message to you, which came to her by mistake due to my absent-mindedness. She wrote me a very thoughtful philosophical letter, in which she proves that Coppelius and Coppola exist only in my imagination and are ghosts of my “I”, which will instantly disappear as soon as I recognize them as such. Really, who would have thought that the spirit, shining like a lovely, sweet dream in those bright, wonderfully laughing children’s eyes, could reason so intelligently and subtly. She refers to you. You were talking about me. You probably gave her lectures on logic so that she could learn to sift through and distinguish everything so skillfully. Leave it! There is no doubt that the barometer seller Giuseppe Coppola is not the lawyer Coppelius. I am listening to lectures by a recently arrived professor of physics, who, like the famous naturalist, bears the surname Spalanzani and is also of Italian origin. He has known Coppola for many years, and, moreover, from Coppola's reprimand alone one can conclude that he is a Piedmontese. Coppelius was a German, but, it seems to me, not a real one. I haven't completely calmed down yet. Consider me - you and Clara - a gloomy dreamer, but I still cannot get rid of the impression that the damned face of Coppelius made on me. I'm glad he left town, as Spalanzani told me. By the way, this professor is an amazing eccentric. He is a small, round man with prominent cheekbones, a thin nose, turned out lips and narrow, piercing eyes. But it will be better than any description if you look at the portrait of Cagliostro, as depicted by Chodowiecki in the Berlin pocket calendar. Spalanzani looks exactly like this. Recently I was walking up the stairs to it and noticed that the curtain, usually tightly drawn behind the glass door, had a small crack on the side. I don’t know how it happened that I looked there with curiosity. In the room, at a small table, with her hands on it with intertwined fingers, sat a tall, very slender, physically developed woman with the greatest proportionality, in a luxurious dress. She was sitting opposite the door, so I could clearly see her angelic beauty. Apparently, she did not notice me, and in general her eyes were strangely motionless, I could say that they lacked visual power, as if she was sleeping with her eyes open. I felt somehow uneasy, and I quietly slipped into the audience located nearby. I found out later that it was Spalanzani’s daughter Olympia, whom for some reason he keeps locked up so that no man dares to approach her. There's probably something going on here: either she's weak-minded or something else. But why am I writing to you about all this? I could tell you all this much better and more expressively. Know that in two weeks I will be with you. I must see my sweet, dear angel Clara again. Then the bad mood that (I must confess) almost took possession of me after her unfortunate, prudent letter will pass. That's why I'm not writing anything to her today. A thousand greetings, etc. Nothing could be more strange and astonishing than what happened to my poor friend, the young student Nathanael, and what I intend to tell you, dear reader. Has it ever happened to you that some feeling completely filled your soul, thoughts and heart, crowding out everything else? Everything in you is bubbling; the blood boils in your veins like a fiery stream, flushing your cheeks with color. The gaze is so strange, as if it catches an image in empty space, invisible to others, and speech is interrupted by heavy sighs? Friends ask: what’s wrong with you, dearest? What do you care about? And then you want to convey the picture that has appeared before your inner gaze with all its living colors, shadows and light, and you try to find words, if only to begin your story. It seems to you that you must immediately, in the very first word, combine all that wonderful, wondrous, terrible, cheerful and terrible that you see, so that it pierces everyone like electric shock. But every word seems colorless, cold and dead to you, and you keep searching, searching, inventing, stumbling, and the unbearable questions of your friends cool the heat of your soul like icy gusts of wind, until this heat fades away completely. But if you, like a brave artist, immediately sketch out the image of your vision with a few bold strokes, then you will more easily find brighter and brighter colors and the living crowd of picturesque images will captivate your friends, and they, like you, will see themselves in the midst the picture that arose in your soul! I must confess, kind reader, that no one actually asked me about the history of young Nathanael; but you know that I belong to that strange breed of authors who, if they carry within themselves something like what I just described, they feel as if everyone they meet, and even the whole world, asks: “So what is it?” what's going on there? Tell me, my dear! " And now I am irresistibly drawn to talk to you about the fatal life of Nathanael. Her unusualness, her amazingness shocked my soul; It was for this reason and also because I wanted, oh reader, for you to experience with me all the wonders of this story, I was so tormented, wanting to begin the story of Nathanael as significant, original and impressive as possible. “Once upon a time...” is a great start to any story, but for this one it’s too banal! “S. lived in a provincial town...” - this is better, at least it corresponds to the facts. Or this: “Get to hell!” exclaimed the student Nathanael, his wild look was full of rage and horror, when the barometer salesman Coppola... I actually already wrote this when it seemed to me that the wild look of the student Nathanael was somewhat ridiculous. But this story is not funny at all. No words came to my mind that could in any way reflect the radiance of the colors of the picture that arose in me. And I decided not to start at all. Therefore, I ask you, dear reader, to consider these three letters, given to me by my friend Lothar, as the outline of a picture, onto which I will try to add more and more colors as I tell the story. Maybe I will be able, like a good portrait painter, to successfully capture some faces and you will find a resemblance without knowing the original, and it will even seem to you that you have often seen them with your own eyes. You may think then, oh reader, that there is nothing more amazing and crazy than real life, and that only the writer could catch it - like a vague reflection in a rough-polished mirror. In order to tell everything that needs to be known from the very beginning, it should be added to the mentioned letters that soon after Nathanael’s father died, his mother took into the house Clara and Lothar, the children of a distant relative who also died and left them orphans. Clara and Nathanael felt a strong inclination towards each other, which no person on earth could resist; they were already engaged when Nathanael left his home to continue his education in G. From there he wrote his last letter and there he listened to lectures by the famous physics professor Spalanzani. Now I can calmly continue my story; but at that moment the image of Clara appeared so vividly before my eyes that I could not tear myself away from it, as it always happened to me when she looked at me with a charming smile. Clara could not be called beautiful; This is what everyone who understood beauty thought, so to speak, in a formal way. But the architects praised the proportionality of her figure, the artists found that the back of her head, shoulders and chest were perhaps too chaste, but everyone fell in love with her marvelous hair, like Mary Magdalene’s, and especially talked about the coloring of Batoni. One of them, a real dreamer, strangely compared Clara’s eyes to Ruisdael’s lake, which reflects the clear azure of a cloudless sky, a forest, flowery meadows, and the entire rich landscape of colorful, cheerful life. But poets and musicians went even further. “What is a lake? What is a mirror?” they said. “Have we ever seen this girl’s eyes not shine with wondrous harmony? Looking at her, it’s as if we begin to hear captivating heavenly melodies that penetrate our souls so that everything awakens and resurrects in her? If at the same time we sing not particularly smartly, then we probably ourselves are a little significant, and we clearly read this in the thin smile that slides across Clara’s lips when we begin to depict something that claims to be a song, although these are just separate sounds, incoherent and chaotically jumping." And so it was. Clara had a vivid and strong imagination of a cheerful, carefree child, a deeply sensitive, tender heart and a penetrating mind. Doubtful, evasive people were not successful with her. She was taciturn, despite her open nature, but her bright gaze and subtle ironic smile said: “My dear friends, how can you make me look at your blurry shadow pictures as real figures, full of movement and life?” Many considered Clara cold, insensitive and prosaic; but others, who understood life more deeply and clearly, loved this warm-hearted, intelligent, trusting girl, like a child, but no one loved her more than Nathanael, who cheerfully and cheerfully advanced in the comprehension of the sciences and arts. Clara also became attached to her sweetheart with all her soul; the first shadow darkened her life, when he broke up with her. With what delight she threw herself into his arms when he, as promised in his last letter to Lothar, returned to his hometown and entered his home. It happened as Nathanael expected; the minute he saw Clara, he forgot both her thoughtful letter and the lawyer Coppelius, all bad moods disappeared. However, Nathanael was right when he wrote to his friend Lothar that the unpleasant image of the barometer salesman Coppola had a hostile influence on his life. Everyone felt this, since in the very first days a very big change was discovered in Nathanael. He fell into gloomy thought and seemed as strange as he had ever been seen. His whole life was filled with dreams and premonitions; He kept repeating that every person who considers himself free is actually serving a terrible game of dark forces, and it is useless to fight this, it is better to humbly submit to the will of fate. He went so far as to assert that it is madness to believe that one can create independently in science and art, since inspiration, without which it is impossible to create, is not born in the soul, but is only the influence of some higher principle. The reasonable Clara was extremely disgusted by these mystical nonsense, but, apparently, all objections had no result. Only when Nathanael declared that Coppelius was an evil principle that had subjugated him from the very moment when he was eavesdropping behind the curtain, and that this disgusting demon would terribly interfere with the happiness of their love, Clara became very serious and said: - Yes, Nathanael, you are right. Coppelius is an evil, hostile principle, it can have a terrible, destructive effect, like a devilish force that has clearly invaded our lives, but only if you do not expel it from your mind and heart. As long as you believe in him, he exists, his power lies in your faith! Nathanael was very angry that Clara believed that the demon existed only in his soul, he was ready to address her with a whole mystical treatise on the devil and dark forces, but Clara, much to Nathanael’s displeasure, annoyedly interrupted him with some careless phrase . He believed that such deep secrets were inaccessible to cold and insensitive souls, not realizing that he included Clara among such base natures - he did not give up trying to initiate her into these secrets. Early in the morning, when Clara was helping prepare breakfast, he stood next to her and read to her all sorts of mystical books, so Clara finally asked: - Dear Nathanael, what if I consider you yourself to be an evil principle that has a hostile influence on my coffee? After all, if I drop everything and watch as you wish, thenLook at you, when you read, the coffee will run out and everyone will be left without breakfast! Nathanael slammed the book shut in anger and ran out of the room. Previously, he was especially good at writing sweet, lively stories, which Clara listened to with the greatest pleasure; now his writings were gloomy, incomprehensible and formless; Clara did not tell him this, sparing him, but he understood perfectly well how she could respond to his creations. Nothing was more deadly to her than boredom; Her gaze and speech then showed uncontrollable drowsiness. Nathanael's writings were very boring indeed. His annoyance at Clara’s coldness and matter-of-factness grew, but Clara could not overcome her displeasure with Nathanael’s foggy, gloomy and boring mysticism, and so they grew more and more distant from each other in their souls, without noticing it. Nathanael admitted to himself that the image of the disgusting Coppelius had faded in his imagination and it was often difficult for him to vividly describe it in his writings, where he acted as an evil fate. Then it occurred to him to choose as the subject of one of the poems his gloomy premonition that Coppelius would interfere with his happiness. He presented himself and Clara in poetry: they are united by bonds of true love, but from time to time, as if some black hand appears in their lives and every time deprives them of some of the joys. Finally, when they are already standing in front of the altar, the terrible Coppelius appears and touches Clara’s beautiful eyes; bloody splashes burn Nathanael's chest. Coppelius grabs him and throws him into a flaming circle of fire, which spins with the speed of a tornado, with a terrible roar, dragging him along with it. It seems as if a hurricane is angrily scourging the foaming waves, and they rise like black, white-headed giants. Through this wild roar he hears Clara’s voice: “Can’t you look at me? Coppelius deceived you, it was not my eyes that scorched your chest, these were hot drops of your own blood - my eyes are unharmed, look at me!” Nathanael thinks: “This is Clara, she will be with me forever.” This thought powerfully breaks through the circle of fire, it stops rotating, and the roar of the storm fades into the black abyss. Nathanael looks into Clara's eyes; but from these eyes death itself looks at him welcomingly. While Nathanael was composing these poems, he was very calm and cheerful, he reworked every line and, carried away by the mystical side, did not calm down until everything became smooth and euphonious. When he finally completed his work and read the poems aloud, he was overcome with fear and wild horror. "Whose scary voice is that?" - exclaimed Nathanael. Soon, however, it seemed to him again that this was a very successful poem and he decided that it should ignite Clara’s cold feelings, although he could hardly explain why to ignite Clara and what, in fact, would lead to the fact that he would scare her terrible images, predicting her a terrible fate that will destroy her happiness. Nathanael and Clara were sitting in a small garden near the house; Clara was very cheerful, because during the three days that Nathanael wrote his new poem, he did not annoy her with his dreams and premonitions. Nathanael spoke as cheerfully and lively about joyful things as before, so Clara said: “Well, now you’re mine again, do you see how we tricked that evil Coppelius?” Only then did Nathanael remember that he had poems in his pocket that he was going to read to her. He immediately took out the sheets of paper and began to read, and Clara, expecting something boring as usual, began to calmly knit. But as the clouds began to gather more and more, she left her work and began to look intently into Nathanael’s eyes. He continued his reading uncontrollably, his cheeks burned from internal heat, tears rolled from his eyes. Finally he finished and, groaning in complete exhaustion, grabbed Clara’s hand and sighed as if in hopeless grief: - Oh, Clara, Clara! Clara gently pressed him to her heart and said quietly, but slowly and seriously: “Nathanael, my dear Nathanael! Throw this crazy, ridiculous, crazy fairy tale into the fire!” Then Nathanael jumped up, pushed Clara away from him and cried out: “Damned, soulless machine gun!” - rushed away. The offended Clara burst into bitter tears: “Oh, he never loved me, he doesn’t understand me!” - she sobbed. Then Lothar entered the gazebo, and Clara was forced to tell him what happened. He loved his sister with all his heart, every word of her insult burned his soul so that the displeasure that he had long carried in his heart against the dreamy Nathanael flared up into insane rage. He went to Nathanael and began to reproach him with harsh words for his recklessness and cruel attitude towards his beloved sister, to which he answered him just as passionately. For a fantastic, crazy fool it was repaid by a pathetic, vulgar, base person. The fight was inevitable. They decided to fight the next morning outside the garden, choosing, according to academic custom, sharply sharpened rapiers. Silent and gloomy, they wandered around. Clara heard their heated argument and noticed that at dusk the fencing teacher brought rapiers. She guessed what would happen. Arriving at the place of the duel, Lothar and Nathanael, still in the same gloomy silence, threw off their coats; with bloodthirsty burning eyes, they were already ready to attack each other, when Clara ran through the garden gate and rushed towards them. Sobbing, she exclaimed: - Terrible, savage people! Kill me before you start fighting!.. How could I live in the world if my beloved killed my brother or my brother killed his beloved. Lothar lowered his weapon and silently looked at the ground; All the love that he felt for the lovely Clara in the best days of his wonderful youth returned to Nathanael’s soul, along with unbearable sadness. The deadly weapon fell from his hands, and he fell at Clara’s feet. - Will you ever forgive me, my only, priceless Clara!.. Will you forgive me, my dear brother Lothar! Lothar was touched by his friend's deep sorrow; crying, these three reconciled people hugged and vowed never to separate again and to love each other forever. Nathanael felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his soul, bending him to the ground, and as if, by resisting the dark force that had taken possession of him, he had saved his entire being, which was in danger of destruction. He lived for three more blissful days near his beloved, and then went to G., where he was supposed to stay for another year, after which he was going to return to his hometown forever. Everything that happened because of Coppelius was hidden from his mother; everyone knew that she could not remember him without shuddering: like Nathanael, she blamed him for the death of her husband. How surprised Nathanael was when, heading to his apartment, he saw that the house where he lived had burned down and only charred, bare walls rose above the foundation. Despite the fact that the fire started in the laboratory of the pharmacist who lived on the ground floor, and the flames immediately engulfed the lower part of the house, Nathanael's brave friends still managed to get into his room, which was located on the upper floor, in time and rescue his books, manuscripts and instruments. They moved all this intact to another house, where they rented a room, which Nathanael occupied. He did not attach much importance to the fact that his room was opposite the apartment of Professor Spalanzani; it also did not seem strange to him that from his window he could see the room where Olympia often sat alone, so that he could see her figure, although her facial features remained vague. But in the end it struck him that Olympia remained for hours in the same position in which he had once seen her through the glass door; she still sat at the small table, doing nothing, and looking at him with a fixed gaze; he had to admit that he had never seen such a beautiful figure, but, keeping the image of Clara in his heart, he remained indifferent to the motionless Olympia and only occasionally glanced at this beautiful statue. One day, as he was sitting and writing a letter to Clara, someone knocked softly on the door; he responded, the door opened, and Coppola’s vile face appeared. Nathanael trembled all over, but remembering what Spalanzani had told him about his compatriot and what he had so sacredly promised to his beloved regarding Coppelius, he was ashamed of his childish fear of ghosts, tried to pull himself together and spoke as calmly and naturally as he could : - I don’t buy barometers, go, buddy, go! But Coppola entered the room and bleated in a hoarse voice, stretching his wide mouth in an ugly smile and sparkling his small eyes from under his gray eyelashes: - Eh, not a barometer, not a barometer! I have karoshi eyes, karoshi eyes! Nathanael exclaimed in horror: - Madman! How can you sell your eyes? What eyes?!. Coppola put his barometers aside, put his hands into his wide pockets and, pulling out glasses and lorgnettes, began to lay them out on the table: - Well, well, glasses, glasses, put them on your nose, here are my eyes, brighten my eyes! Muttering like this, he took out more and more glasses, so that, dumped on the table, they began to shine and flicker strangely. Thousands of eyes looked at Nathanael, blinking convulsively; he could not tear himself away from them; The sparkling glances crossed more and more terribly and pierced Nathanael’s chest with their crimson rays. Seized with inexpressible horror, he shouted: - Stop, stop, you terrible man! He firmly grabbed the hand of Coppola, who climbed was in my pocket to get more glasses, although the whole table was already littered with them. Coppola gently released his hand and said with a nasty laugh: - Oh, not for you - so here’s more glass! He grabbed all the glasses, hid them and took out from his side pocket many large and small telescopes. As soon as the glasses disappeared, Nathanael completely calmed down and, remembering Clara, said to himself that he himself had summoned a terrible ghost from his soul and that Coppola was simply an honest mechanic and optician, and not a native of the other world and not a double of the damned Coppelius. Moreover, there was nothing special in the glasses that Coppola now laid out on the table, and even less anything ghostly, like in glasses; To make things right, Nathanael decided to actually buy something from Coppola. He took a small, very elegantly finished pocket telescope and, wanting to try it, looked out of the window. Never in his life had he seen glass that brought objects closer so clearly and clearly. Involuntarily he began to look into Spalanzani's rooms. Olympia, as always, sat at the small table, placing her hands on it and intertwining her fingers. Only now Nathanael took a good look at her marvelously beautiful face. Only his eyes, as before, seemed strangely motionless and lifeless to him. However, when he began to closely examine Olympia’s eyes through a telescope, it seemed to Nathanael that they emitted some kind of lunar shine. It was as if only now they had acquired the gift of sight, and their gaze became more and more alive. Nathanael stood at the window as if spellbound, unable to distract himself from the contemplation of the heavenly beautiful Olympia. Coughing and shuffling woke him from his dreams. Coppola stood behind him: “Three sequins - three ducats,” he said. Nathanael, completely forgetting about the optician, hastily counted out the required amount. - Well, how? Karosh glass? Karosh? - asked Coppola in his disgusting voice, making a curve smile. -- Yes Yes Yes! - Nathanael answered with annoyance, - goodbye, buddy. Coppola left the room, throwing strange sidelong glances at Nathanael. Nathanael heard him laughing loudly on the stairs. “Well, yes,” thought Nathanael, “he’s laughing, because I paid too much for this little pipe, I paid too much!” As he repeated these words, someone's deep, dying sigh swept through the room, and his breath was taken away from horror. But it was he himself who sighed like that, he understood this very well. “Clara,” he said to himself, “is absolutely right in considering me a stupid spirit seer: it’s really stupid, and even more than stupid, that I’m so worried about the stupid thought that I paid Coppola too much for his glass; I don’t I see no reason for this." He sat down at the table to finish his letter to Clara, but, looking out the window, he was convinced that Olympia was still in the same place, and at that very moment he jumped up, as if carried away by some irresistible force, grabbed Coppola’s trumpet and could not tear himself away from contemplation Olympia. Until his friend and sworn brother Sigmund came to pick him up to go together to Professor Spalanzani's lecture. The curtain on the door to the fatal room was tightly drawn, and neither now nor in the next two days he could see Olympia, despite the fact that he constantly stood at the window and looked through Coppola’s telescope. On the third day, even the windows were curtained. Full of despair, tormented by melancholy and ardent desire, he went out into the city. The image of Olympia hovered in the air before him, protruded from behind the bushes and looked at him from the light stream with large, sparkling eyes. The image of Clara disappeared from his heart; Thinking only about Olympia, he exclaimed loudly: - Oh, beautiful high star of my love! Did you rise above me to immediately disappear and leave me? Returning to his room, he noticed that there was noisy movement in the Spalanzani house. All the doors were wide open, various utensils were being brought in, the windows on the first floor were wide open, active maids were scurrying back and forth with large brushes, carpenters and upholsterers were knocking and pounding with a terrible noise. Nathanael stopped in amazement in the middle of the street; Then Sigmund approached him and asked with a laugh: - Well, what can you say about old Spalanzani? Nathanael replied that he could not say anything, because he knew nothing about the professor, but that he was surprised by the unusual animation in this usually quiet and gloomy house. Then he learned from Sigmund that Spalanzani was organizing a big celebration tomorrow with a concert and a ball, to which he had invited half of the university. They said that Spalanzani would show his daughter Olympia for the first time, whom he had hidden from human eyes for so long. Nathanael found an invitation card and at the appointed hour, with a rapidly beating heart, came to the professor, when the carriages had already begun to arrive and the lights were burning in the decorated halls. The society was numerous and brilliant. Olympia appeared in a luxurious, elegant dress. It was impossible not to admire her beautiful face and figure. It was, apparently, too tightly tightened, which is why there was some strange arch of the back and a wasp-like thinness of the waist. There was something measured and tense in her posture and movements that many did not like, but everyone attributed it to the awkwardness that she experienced in society. The concert has begun. Olympia played the piano with great skill and sang the bravura aria just as well in a clear, almost sharp, crystalline voice. Nathanael was absolutely delighted; he stood in the very last row, and Olympia’s features seemed somewhat different to him in the dazzling glare of the candles. He quietly took out Coppola's telescope and began to look through it at the beautiful Olympia. And then he saw that her gaze was fixed on him, and this gaze, in which love and longing were so clearly read, penetrated deeply into his soul. Skillful roulades seemed to Nathanael the heavenly rejoicing of the Soul, enlightened by love; when, at the end of the cadenza, a long, sonorous trill scattered throughout the hall, he felt as if he were suddenly embraced by passionate arms; he could no longer restrain himself and, in a fit of delight, loudly exclaimed: “Olympia!” Everyone turned around, many laughed. And the cathedral organist made an even gloomier face than usual and said only: “Well, well!” The concert was over and the ball began. "Dance with her, with her!" This was the goal of all Nathanael's desires and aspirations. But how can one dare to invite her, the queen of the ball? However, when the dancing began, he, without knowing how, found himself near Olympia, whom no one had yet invited, and, barely muttering a few words, took her hand. Olympia's hand was cold as ice, the cold of death blew over him! He looked into Olympia’s eyes, which lit up with love and desire, and at the same moment it seemed to him that streams of hot blood flowed down this cold hand and the pulse began to beat. The thirst for love flared up in Nathanael’s soul even more, he hugged the beautiful Olympia and rushed off to dance with her. Nathanael always believed that he was dancing in time with the music, but from the special rhythmic precision with which Olympia moved in the dance, guiding him at the same time, he soon noticed how little she kept time. However, he did not want to dance with any other woman and was ready to kill anyone who came up to invite Olympia. But this only happened twice; to his surprise, Olympia remained in place every time the dance began, and he did not miss the opportunity to invite her again. If Nathanael could see anything other than the beautiful Olympia, then some kind of quarrel or argument would certainly arise, for it was clear that the quiet, barely restrained laughter that arose among the young people, now in one corner or another , belonged to Olympia, for some reason they cast very strange glances at her. Inflamed by dancing and wine, Nathanael completely forgot his usual timidity. He sat next to Olympia, holding her hand in his, and with great inspiration and fervor spoke to her about love, expressing himself in words that neither he nor Olympia understood. However, perhaps she understood, because she did not take her eyes off him and sighed from time to time: “Ah, ah, ah!” - “Oh, wonderful, heavenly maiden! A ray from the promised land of love! A deep soul in which my whole being is reflected!” - said Nathanael and much more in the same way, and Olympia just sighed: “Ah, ah, ah!” Professor Spalanzani passed by the happy couple several times and, looking at them, smiled with some strange complacency. Meanwhile, despite the fact that he was in a completely different world, Naganael suddenly noticed that it had become completely dark in the professor’s house; he looked around and, to his considerable surprise, saw that the last two candles in the hall were burning out, already ready to go out. The music and dancing are long gone. "Separation! Separation!" - Nathanael cried in despair; he kissed Olympia's hand, bowed to her face, and his flaming lips met her icy lips! He shuddered with horror again: suddenly it came to him the legend of the dead bride comes to mind; but Olympia pressed him tightly to her, and it seemed that the kiss breathed life into her lips. Professor Spalanzani walked slowly through the empty hall, the sound of his steps was repeated by the echo, and his figure, together with the wavering shadow, had a terrible, ghostly appearance. -- Do you love me? Do you love me, Olympia? Just one word! Do you love me? - Nathanael whispered, but Olympia stood up and only sighed:-- Ahah! - Beautiful, wonderful star of love! - continued Nathanael, - you appeared to me and you will shine forever, illuminating my soul! -- Ahah! - answered Olympia, walking away. Nathanael followed her; they found themselves in front of the professor. “You had an unusually lively conversation with my daughter,” said Spalanzani with a smile, “if you find pleasure in talking with this timid girl, then we will be glad to see you at our place.” When Nathanael left the professor's house, the vast sky shone in his chest. All the following days, the holiday of Spalanzani was the subject of gossip and gossip, although the professor did everything to impress and show off his splendor, the mocking students did not fail to talk about various awkwardnesses and oddities that were noticed, especially attacking the motionless, silent Olympia , who, despite her beautiful appearance, was reproached for complete stupidity, and this was seen as the reason that Spalanzani hid her from society for so long. Nathanael listened to these rumors with hidden anger, but remained silent, because he believed that there was no need to prove to these fellows that their own stupidity prevented them from discerning the deep, beautiful soul of Olympia. “Do me a favor, brother,” said Sigmund one day, “tell me how you managed to fall in love with this wax figure, this wooden doll?” Nathanael wanted to angrily object to him, but restrained himself and only said: “Tell me, Sigmund, how, with your lively mind and penchant for everything beautiful, could you not notice the heavenly beauty of Olympia?” But I must thank fate for this, for it is for this reason that you will not become my rival; otherwise one of us would have to die. Sigmund, seeing what was happening to his friend, tried to change the topic of conversation and, saying that in love one should never judge the subject, added: “However, it is strange that many people judge Olympia the same way as I do.” She seemed to us - don't take it to heart - unpleasantly motionless and soulless. Her figure and face are proportionate and correct, that’s true, she could be considered beautiful if her gaze were not so lifeless, I would say, devoid of visual power. Her gait is somehow strangely measured, every movement is precise, like a winding mechanism. Her acting and singing are characterized by the perfection of a singing machine, and the same can be said about the way she dances. Olympia made some kind of repulsive impression on us: all the time it seemed that she was only depicting a living creature - there was some kind of secret hidden here. Nathanael did not give vent to the bitter feeling that gripped him at Sigmund’s words; he overcame his annoyance and only said very seriously: “It may very well be that Olympia is not liked by such cold and prosaic people as you.” Only the poet’s feeling reveals what is similar to him in nature. Only her loving gaze penetrated me, piercing my heart and thoughts with radiance, only in Olympia’s love do I find a reflection of myself. Is it really bad that she doesn’t make flat speeches like other superficial people? She is laconic, it is true, but her few words are real hieroglyphs of the inner world, full of love and the highest knowledge of spiritual life through the contemplation of eternal existence. But you are not given the opportunity to understand this, and all my words are in vain. - God save you, my brother! - said Sigmund very softly and sadly, - it seems to me that you are on a bad road. You can count on me when everything... no, I won't say anything more! Nathanael suddenly felt that the cold, prosaic Sigmund was very devoted to him, and he warmly shook the hand extended to him. Nathanael completely forgot that Clara, whom he once loved, his mother, Lothar, exists in the world... everything disappeared from his memory, he lived only with Olympia, with whom he spent several hours every day, talking about his love, his sympathy for life, his psychic affinity, and Olympia listened to him with constant attention. Nathanael retrieved from the depths of his desk everything that he had once composed. Poems, fantasies, visions, novels, stories, mixed with all sorts of sonnets, stanzas and canzones rising to the clouds - he read all this to Olympia for hours, not knowing fatigue. Never before had he had such a grateful listener. She didn’t knit or embroider, didn’t look out the window, didn’t feed the bird, didn’t play with the lap dog or her favorite cat, didn’t twirl paper figures in her hands, she didn’t do anything at all and didn’t yawn or cough, in a word, she didn’t sit moving, fixing a motionless gaze into the eyes of his beloved, and this gaze became more fiery and lively. Only when Nathanael got up and kissed her hand, and sometimes on the lips, did she say: “Ah, ah!”, and then: “Good night, my dear!” “Oh, wonderful, deep soul!” exclaimed Nathanael, returning to his room, “you are the only one who can understand me.” He trembled with delight, thinking about what a wonderful consonance there was in the feelings of him and Olympia; it seemed to him that her whole soul was listening to his poetic gift and that he was hearing the voice of her soul. This was probably the case, for Olympia uttered only those words mentioned above. When, in moments of enlightenment and sobriety, for example in the morning, immediately after awakening, Natapael remembered the complete passivity and dumbness of Olympia, he said to himself: “What are words? The look of her heavenly eyes speaks to me more than any speeches. Is it possible to imprison a child of heaven in a tight circle of miserable earthly needs? Professor Spalanzani seemed to be very pleased with the relationship that arose between Nathanael and his daughter; his pleasure manifested itself in various small signs; when Nathanael finally decided to hint at his desire to get engaged to Olympia, he broke into a smile and declared that he was giving his daughter a completely free choice. Encouraged by these words and all aflame with love, Nathanael decided, on the other hand, to demand from Olympia that she openly and clearly express what her wondrous gaze had long ago told him, that is, that she wanted to belong to him forever. He began to look for the ring that his mother gave him when they parted, in order to present it to Olympia as a symbol of his devotion and the emerging blossoming life together. At the same time, he came across letters from Clara and Lothar, but he indifferently threw them aside, found the ring, hid it in his pocket and flew to Olympia. As he climbed the stairs, he heard a terrible noise that seemed to be coming from Spalanzani's office. There was stomping, crashing, slamming, knocking on the door, and all this was accompanied by swearing and curses: “Let me go, let me go, damned scoundrel! Have you devoted your soul and body to this? Ha, ha, ha, ha! mechanism! - You're a fool with your mechanism. - Damned dog, brainless watchmaker! - Get out! - Satan! - Stop, you brute! Stop! - Get out! - Let him go!.." Those were the voices of Spalanzani and the terrible Coppelius, who were cursing and jumping on each other. Nathanael burst into the room, gripped by unaccountable fear. The professor was holding a female figure by the shoulders, and the Italian Coppola was holding her legs, and both, arguing furiously, pulled her in different directions. Nathanael recoiled in mortal horror, recognizing the figure of Olympia. He was about to rush towards them in order to take his beloved away from these angry people, but at that moment Coppola, with terrible force, tore the figure out of the professor’s hands and dealt Spalanzani such a crushing blow with it that he fell onto the table where the bottles, retorts, and flasks stood. and glass cylinders. All these vessels shattered into thousands of fragments. Coppola threw the female figure over his shoulder and, with a vile, shrill laugh, ran down the stairs, touching the steps with her ugly dangling legs, which rotated and beat against the steps with a wooden knock. Nathanael froze in place. He saw too clearly that on Olympia’s deathly pale, waxy face there were no eyes, in their place there were black holes: she was a soulless doll. Spalanzani rolled on the floor, glass shards injured his head, chest and arm, blood flowed in streams, but he gathered all his strength and shouted: “Follow him, chase him! Why are you delaying! Coppelius, Coppelius! He stole my best from me! "A machine gun! I worked on it for twenty years, I put my whole soul into it; the mechanism, the speech, the gait - everything is my business, only the eyes, the eyes were stolen from you! You damned bastard! Give me back Olympia, here are your eyes!" Nathanael saw a pair of bloody eyes on the floor, staring at him. Spalanzani grabbed them with his good hand and threw them at Nathanael, so that they hit his chest. Then madness dug into him with fiery claws, entered his soul, tormenting his mind and heart. "Hey, hey, hey! Circle of fire! Circle of fire, twirl more merrily, merrier. Spin, wooden doll, twirl, beauty, lively!" He rushed at the professor and grabbed him by the throat. He would have strangled him if people had not come running to the noise; They pulled away the raging Nathanael and thus saved the professor’s life, after which they bandaged his wounds. Sigmund, despite all his strength, could not cope with the raging madman, who constantly shouted in a terrible voice: “Turn around, wooden doll!” and fought back with all his might with clenched fists. Finally, through joint efforts, we managed to overcome him, knocking him to the floor and tying him up with ropes. His words turned into a terrifying animal howl. In this state he was taken to a mental hospital. Dear reader, before continuing my story about the unfortunate Nathanael, I can assure you - if you have any part in the skillful creator of Spalanzani mechanisms - that he has completely recovered from his wounds. However, he had to leave the university, since Nathanael’s story attracted everyone’s attention and, in general, it was considered a completely unacceptable deception to bring a wooden doll into society instead of a living person (after all, Olympia safely attended social tea parties). The lawyers further called this a skillful forgery, and all the more deserving of strict punishment, because it was directed against society and was so cleverly arranged that not a single person (with the exception of some observant students) noticed it, although now everyone was playing wise men and referring to various things that seemed suspicious to them. These gentlemen did not reveal anything special, however. Well, could anyone, for example, find it suspicious that, according to one elegant gentleman, Olympia, contrary to all custom, ate more often than she yawned? This, according to the dandy, fueled the movement of the hidden mechanism, which caused a noticeable crackling sound, etc. The professor of poetry and eloquence took a pinch of tobacco, patted the snuffbox, cleared his throat and solemnly announced: “Dear gentlemen and ladies!” Don't you really notice where the salt lies in this? It's all about allegory, it's nothing more than a metaphor! Do you understand me! Sapienti sat!* But many of the esteemed gentlemen were not at all satisfied with this explanation; the story with the mechanical doll took deep roots in their souls, and the worst distrust of human beings settled in them. To make sure that they were not in love with a wooden doll, many admirers demanded that their beloved sing and dance not exactly in time, that they knit or embroider while reading aloud, play with a dog, etc., and most importantly, so that they not only listen, but also speak themselves, so that their speech truly expresses thoughts and feelings. For many, the love union became stronger and more soulful, while others quietly separated. “Yes, you can’t be sure of anything,” said first one and then the other. At tea parties, everyone began to yawn terribly and did not eat anything in order to ward off any suspicion. Spalanzani, as has already been said, had to leave in order to avoid proceedings taken against an automaton who had been fraudulently introduced into human society. Coppola also disappeared. * Enough for the wise (lat.). It seemed to Nathanael that he had awakened from a terrible, heavy dream. He opened his eyes and felt indescribable bliss pouring into his soul with heavenly warmth. He was lying on the bed in his room in his parents' house, Clara was bending over him, and his mother and Lothar were standing nearby. - Finally, finally, my dear Nathanael, you have been healed of this terrible disease and now you will be mine again! - Clara said and hugged Nathanael. Tears flowed from his eyes from sadness and joy, and he groaned loudly: - Oh, Clara! My Clara! Then Sigmund entered, who all this time supported his friend in his misfortune. Nathanael extended his hand to him: - You did not leave me, faithful friend! Every trace of madness disappeared thanks to the loving care of his mother, lover and friends. Nathanael soon recovered completely. Meanwhile, happiness visited their home: the old stingy uncle, from whom no one expected anything, died, and left his mother, in addition to a significant fortune, an estate in a beautiful area not far from the city. His mother, Lothar and Nathanael decided to move there with their Clara, with whom he now intended to marry. Nathanael became surprisingly meek and soft, like a child, now Clara’s wondrous, heavenly pure soul was revealed to him. No one made even the remotest hints about the past. Only when Sigmund was leaving did Nathanael say to him: - My God, friend! What a bad road I was on! But, fortunately, the angel sent me on a bright path in time. It was mine. Clara! Sigmund did not allow him to continue, fearing that painful memories might be resurrected... And then the time came when the four lucky ones got ready to go to their estate. At noon, having made a lot of purchases, they walked through the streets of the city. The tall tower of the town hall cast a gigantic shadow on the market square. “Come on,” said Clara, “let’s climb the tower and look at the distant mountains!” No sooner said than done! Nathanael and Clara went upstairs, the mother and the maid went home, and Lothar, who did not want to climb the high stairs, remained waiting below. The lovers stood hand in hand on the highest gallery of the tower and looked at the forests, above which the blue mountains rose like a giant city. “Look, what a strange gray bush, it seems to be moving,” said Clara. Nathanael automatically lowered his hand into his side pocket and, groping for Coppola’s spyglass there, looked in that direction... Clara was in front of him. And so his blood pulsated convulsively in his veins, turning terribly pale, he stared at Clara, and suddenly fiery streams poured from his wandering eyes, he languished like a hunted animal, jumped high and, laughing terribly, shouted in a piercing voice: “Turn around, wooden doll.” , turn around!" - then he grabbed Clara with terrifying force and wanted to push her down, but in mortal fear she clung tightly to the railing. Lothar heard Nathanael's furious roar and Clara's desperate cry. A terrible suspicion stirred within him. He rushed upstairs, but the door to the second gallery was locked. Clara screamed louder. Lost with fear and rage, Lothar began pounding on the door, which finally swung open. - Help! Help! - Clara’s voice weakened and soon died away. - This madman killed her! - cried Lothar. The door to the upper gallery was also locked. Despair gave him strength, he tore the door off its hinges. Good God! — Klara, thrown over the railing by the mad Nathanael, hung in the air. She held on to the iron rod with only one hand. Quicker than lightning, Lothar grabbed his sister, pulled her up and at the same instant hit the madman in the face with such force that he recoiled and released his prey. Lothar ran downstairs, carrying his unconscious sister in his arms. She was saved. Nathanael alone went on a rampage in the gallery, jumping high and shouting: “Circle of fire, spin! Circle of fire, spin!” People came running to this wild cry. Towering above them, like some kind of giant, was the lawyer Coppelius, who had just arrived in the city and came along the same road to the market square; they wanted to go upstairs to grab the madman, but Coppelius said with a laugh: - Ha, ha! Wait, he will appear now! - and began to look up along with the others. Nathanael suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, shrank and froze, but when he saw Coppelius, he shouted piercingly: “Ah, brush your eyes! Paint your eyes!” - and jumped over the railing. When Nathanael lay on the pavement with his head crushed, Coppelius disappeared into the crowd... A few years later, Clara was seen in a remote area, sitting on the porch of a beautiful village house next to a friendly man; two cheerful boys were playing next to them. From this we can conclude that Clara found a calm family happiness that corresponds to her cheerful, cheerful nature, which Nathanael with his eternal mental discord could never have given her. OCR, Spellcheck: Ostashko

Hoffmann's fairy tale novel The Sandman is the author's most famous and popular work. The story of The Sandman is recommended for adults and children over 14 years of age to read.
You shouldn’t take literally all of Hoffmann’s arguments in the person of the main character Nathanael; take a closer look and you will see a lot of hidden meaning and living energy in them; You will be able to feel how childhood mental traumas can become stronger in a person’s consciousness and haunt him throughout his life.

Sandman. Summary
The fairy tale novel The Sandman is divided into four parts. The first three are letters from the main character Nathanael to his friend Lothar and the response of the girl Clara to Nathanael. The fourth part is the story itself.

First letter (Nathanael to Lothar). Summary
In his first letter, Nathanael tells the story of his childhood about the Sandman, who scared him before going to bed, about the death of his father and about his terrible friend Coppelius, in whom the boy saw evil and the embodiment of the Sandman. The case of a barometer seller is also described.

Second letter (Clara to Nathanael.) Summary
Nathanael's beloved Clara accidentally read a letter addressed to her brother Lothar and expresses her point of view on the young man's experiences, showing him that all fears and horrors are not real.

Third letter (Nathanael to Lothar). Summary
Nathanael talks about how he lives, about his physics teacher Spalanzani and his mysterious daughter Olympia.

Summary of the story of The Sandman
After visiting Clara and Lothar, the young man returns to study in the city and sees that his apartment has burned down. Having moved to another house, he is surprised to notice that he lives directly opposite the physics professor. Having bought a telescope, he spends whole days watching Olympia and at Spalanzani’s party he meets her, falling madly in love. Nathanael's best friend tries to help, saying that Olympia is very strange and that she has lifeless eyes, but he does not listen, forgetting about Lothar and his fiancee Clara.
By coincidence, Nathanael ends up in the professor’s house at the wrong hour and learns terrible news: Olympia is not a person, but just a doll. The young man is going crazy.
Having been in a mental hospital and returning to his homeland, to his mother and friends, he is cured and plans a calm, measured life with Clara. However, this is not destined to come true. The story ends with Nathanael's suicide, once again obsessed with the Sandman.

Nathanael - Lothar

You are probably all terribly worried now that I haven’t written for so long. Mother, of course, is angry, and Clara, perhaps, thinks that I spend my life in noisy pleasures and have completely forgotten my lovely angel, whose appearance is so deeply imprinted in my mind and heart. But this is unfair: every day and at every hour I remember you, and in sweet dreams the friendly image of my dear Clerchen appears to me, and her bright eyes smile at me as captivatingly as it happened when I came to you.

Oh, was I able to write to you in that mental turmoil that had hitherto upset all my thoughts! Something terrible has invaded my life! A gloomy premonition of a terrible fate threatening me spreads over me like black shadows of clouds that not a single friendly ray of the sun penetrates. But first I need to tell you what happened to me. I know that I have to do this, but as soon as I think about it, crazy laughter rises in me. Ah, dear Lothar, how can I make you feel even in part that what happened to me a few days ago could really have disastrously disturbed my life!

If you were here, you would see everything for yourself; however, now you will probably regard me as an extravagant spirit seer. In a word, the terrible thing that happened to me and left a deadly impression on me, which I am trying in vain to get rid of, was simply that a few days ago, precisely on October 30, at noon, a salesman came into my room barometers and offered me his goods. I didn’t buy anything, and even threatened to throw him down the stairs, in response to which he immediately left himself.

You guess that only completely unusual circumstances, which left a deep mark on my life, could give importance to this adventure, so that the person of the ill-fated ragpicker should have had such a disastrous effect on me. And so it is. I am gathering all my strength to calmly and patiently tell you something from the times of my early youth, so that your agile mind can clearly and clearly imagine everything in living images.

But I barely want to start this when I already hear your laughter and Clara’s words: “But this is sheer childishness!” Laugh, I ask you, laugh at me with all your heart! I'm begging you! But, merciful God, my hair stands on end, and it seems to me that, begging you to laugh at me, I am in the same insane despair in which Franz Moor conjured Daniel. But let's get to the point!

Except during lunch, my brothers and sisters and I rarely saw our father during the day. He was probably very busy with his position. After dinner, which, according to old custom, was served at seven o’clock, we all went with my mother to my father’s office and sat down at the round table. My father smoked tobacco and sipped beer from a large glass from time to time. He often told us various outlandish stories, and he himself became so enraged that his pipe always went out, and I had to bring burning paper to it and light it again, which amused me greatly. Often he would also give us picture books, while he himself, silent and motionless, would sit in an armchair, blowing out such thick clouds of smoke around him that we all seemed to be floating in a fog. On such evenings the mother would be very sad and, as soon as nine o’clock struck, she would say:

“Well, children! Now to bed! To bed! The Sandman is coming, I can already see it!”

And, it’s true, every time I heard heavy, measured steps thundering down the stairs; That's right, it was the Sandman. One day this dull stomping and roar especially frightened me; I asked my mother as she took us away:

“Oh, mummy, who is this evil Sandpiper who always drives us away from daddy? What does he look like? “My child, there is no Sandman,” the mother answered, “when I say that the Sandman is coming, it only means that your eyelids are sticking together and you cannot open your eyes, as if you had been dusted with sand.”

My mother’s answer did not reassure me, and in my childish mind the thought clearly arose that my mother denied the existence of the Sandman only so that we would not be afraid of him - after all, I always heard him climbing the stairs! Spurred by curiosity and wanting to find out in detail everything about the Sandman and his attitude towards children, I finally asked the old nanny who was caring for my younger sister, what kind of person was this, the Sandman?

“Eh, Tanelkhen,” she said, “don’t you really know yet? This is such an evil man who comes for children when they are stubborn and do not want to go to sleep, he throws a handful of sand in their eyes, so that they are covered in blood and climb on their foreheads, and then he puts the children in a bag and takes them to the moon for food to their children who sit there in the nest, and their beaks are crooked, like those of owls, and they peck out the eyes of naughty human children.”

And so my imagination presented me with a terrible image of the cruel Sandpiper; in the evening, as soon as footsteps thundered on the stairs, I trembled with melancholy and horror. My mother couldn’t get anything out of me except screams interrupted by sobs: “Sandbox! Sandpiper! I ran headlong into the bedroom, and the terrifying ghost of the Sandman tormented me all night. I had already come to such an age that I could understand that with the Sandman and his nest on the moon everything was not exactly as my nanny told me; however, the Sandman still remained a terrible ghost for me - horror and trepidation filled me when I not only heard him climb the stairs, but noisily open the door to my father’s office and enter there. Sometimes he disappeared for a long time. But after that he came for several days in a row.

Many years passed in this way, and yet I could not get used to this ominous obsession and the image of the cruel Sandpiper did not fade in my soul. His short interaction with my father occupied my imagination more and more; Some insurmountable timidity did not allow me to ask my father about this, but the desire to explore this secret myself, to see the fabulous Sandpiper, grew in me year after year. The Sandman took me on the path of the wonderful, the extraordinary, where it is so easy to seduce a child’s soul. I loved nothing more than reading or listening to scary stories about kobolds, witches, gnomes, etc.; but everyone was dominated by the Sandman, whom I constantly drew everywhere - on tables, cabinets, walls, coal and chalk in the most strange and disgusting guises. When I was ten years old, my mother, sending me out of the nursery, gave me a room in the corridor not far from my father’s office. We were still hastily sent to bed as soon as nine o'clock struck and the approach of a stranger was heard in the house. From my closet I heard him enter my father’s room, and soon it began to seem to me that some thin, strange-smelling fumes were wafting through the house. Curiosity inflamed me more and more and finally gave me the determination to somehow see the Sandman. Often, as soon as my mother left, I would sneak out of my little room into the corridor. But I couldn’t notice anything, because when I reached the place where I could see the Sandman, he had already closed the door behind him. Finally, driven by an irresistible desire, I decided to hide in my father’s office and wait for the Sandman there.

One evening, from the silence of my father and the sad thoughtfulness of my mother, I concluded that the Sandman must come; and therefore, feeling very tired and not waiting for nine o’clock, I left the room and hid in a dark corner near the door. The front door creaked; Slow, heavy steps were heard in the hallway and on the stairs. The mother hurried past, taking the children away. Quietly I opened the door to my father's room. He sat, as usual, silent and motionless, with his back to the entrance; He didn’t notice me, I quickly slipped into the room and hid behind the curtain that covered the open closet where my father’s dress hung. Closer - steps were heard closer and closer - behind the doors someone was coughing strangely, groaning and muttering. My heart beat with fear and anticipation. Now footsteps began to thunder near the door, - near the door itself. Someone pulled the handle hard and the door creaked open! Bracing myself with all my strength, I carefully poke my head forward. The Sandman is standing in the middle of the room right in front of my father, the bright candlelight illuminating his face! The Sandman, the terrible Sandman - yes, it was the old lawyer Coppelius, who often dined with us!

However, no most terrible vision could plunge me into greater horror than this same Coppelius. Imagine a tall, broad-shouldered man with a large awkward head and a sallow face; greenish cat eyes sparkle viciously under his thick gray eyebrows; a huge, healthy nose hung over his upper lip. His crooked mouth often twitches with an evil smile; then two purple spots appear on the cheeks and a strange hiss escapes from clenched teeth. Coppelius always appeared in an ash-gray tailcoat of an ancient cut; He had the same camisole and trousers, black stockings and shoes with rhinestone buckles. A small wig barely covered the top of his head, curls stuck out above his large purple ears, and a wide, blank wallet puffed up at the back of his head, revealing a silver buckle that held his neckerchief together. His whole appearance inspired horror and disgust; but what we children especially hated were his knobby, shaggy hands, so that we were disgusted by everything he touched. He noticed this and began to amuse himself by the fact that, under various pretexts, he would deliberately touch the cookies or fruits that our kind mother secretly put on our plates, so that we, with tears in our eyes, looked at them and could not, from nausea and disgust, taste them. delicacies that always made us happy. He did exactly the same on holidays, when my father poured us a glass of sweet wine. He hurried to go through everything with his hands, or even raised a glass to his blue lips and burst into hellish laughter, noticing that we did not dare to reveal our annoyance except through quiet sobs. He always called us little animals, in his presence we were not allowed to make a word, and we wholeheartedly cursed the vile, hostile man who, with intent and intent, poisoned our most innocent joys. Mother, it seemed, just like us, hated the disgusting Coppelius, for as soon as he appeared, her cheerful ease was replaced by gloomy and preoccupied seriousness. His father treated him as a higher being who must be pleased in every possible way and patiently endure all his ignorance. The slightest hint was enough - and his favorite dishes were prepared for him and rare wines were served.

When I saw Coppelius, a sudden thought struck me, plunging me into horror and awe, that after all, no one else could be the Sandman, but this Sandman no longer seemed to me like a beech of nanny's tales, who drags children's eyes to feed his offspring in an owl's nest on the moon - no! - he was a disgusting ghostly sorcerer who, wherever he appeared, brought grief, misfortune - temporary and eternal death.

I stood as if spellbound. Poking my head out of the curtains, I stood there, eavesdropping, although I risked being discovered and, as I well understood, severely punished. The father greeted Coppelius very solemnly. “Live! Get to work!” - he exclaimed in a dull, nasal voice and took off his dress. The father silently and gloomily took off his dressing gown, and they dressed in long black robes. I didn't see where they got them from. Father opened the closet doors; and I saw: what I had long considered a closet was rather a black recess where there was a small fireplace. Coppelius approached, and the blue flame, crackling, soared above the hearth. Many strange vessels stood around. Oh my God! When my old father bent over the fire, what a terrible change happened to him! It seemed that a severe convulsive pain had transformed his meek, honest face into an ugly, disgusting satanic mask. He looked like Coppelius! This latter, taking red-hot tongs, pulled out white-hot lumps of some substance, which he then diligently beat with a hammer. It seemed to me that many human faces were flashing all around, only without eyes - instead of them there were terrible, deep black hollows. “Eyes here! Eyes!" - exclaimed Coppelius in a dull and menacing voice. Seized by inexplicable horror, I screamed and collapsed from my ambush onto the floor. And then Coppelius grabbed me. “Ah, little beast! Beast! - he bleated, gnashing his teeth, picked me up and threw me onto the fireplace, so that the flames singed my hair. “Now we have eyes, eyes, wonderful children’s eyes,” Coppelius muttered and, having collected handfuls of hot coals in the oven, he was about to throw them in my face. And so my father, stretching out his hands to him, prayed: “Master! Master! - leave your eyes to my Nathanael, - leave them!”

Coppelius laughed loudly: “Let the little one have eyes, and he will pay his lesson well in this world; Well, we’ll still check how his arms and legs are fitted.” And so he grabbed me with such force that all my joints cracked, and began to twist my arms and legs, first twisting them, then straightening them. “Yeah, this one doesn’t hurt, she walks well!” - and this one is good, as it was! The old man knew his stuff!” - Coppelius hissed and muttered. But everything in my eyes became dark and clouded, a sudden spasm pierced my entire being - I felt nothing more. A warm, gentle breath touched my face, I woke up as if from a mortal sleep, my mother bent over me. “Is Sandpiper still here?” - I stammered. “No, my dear child, no, he left a long time ago and will not do anything bad to you!” - this is what the mother said and kissed and pressed her beloved son returned to her heart.

But why bother you, dear Lothar? Why tell you all the details at such length when there is still so much that needs to be told to you? In a word, my eavesdropping was open, and Coppelius treated me cruelly. Fright and horror produced a strong fever in me, from which I suffered for several weeks. “Is Sandpiper still here?” - those were my first reasonable words and a sign of my recovery, my salvation. Now all that remains is to tell you about the most terrible hour of my youth; then you will be convinced: it is not the weakening of my eyes that is the reason that everything seems colorless to me, but a dark predestination really hangs over me, like a gloomy cloud, which I, perhaps, will dispel only by death.

Coppelius did not appear again; rumor spread that he had left the city.

About a year passed, we, according to our old, unchangeable custom, sat in the evening at the round table. My father was cheerful and told many interesting stories that happened to him on his travels during his youth. And so, when nine o’clock struck, we suddenly heard the hinges of the front door creaking and slow cast-iron steps thundering in the hallway and along the stairs.

"It's Coppelius!" - Mother said, turning pale. "Yes! “This is Coppelius,” repeated the father in a tired, broken voice. Tears flowed from mother's eyes. "Father! Father! - she cried. “Is it really still necessary?”

"Last time! - he answered, - this is the last time he comes to me, I promise you. Go, go with the children! Go, go to sleep! Good night!"

It was as if I was being crushed by a heavy cold stone - my breath was stifled! Mother, seeing that I was frozen motionless, took me by the hand: “Come on, Nathanael, let’s go!” I allowed myself to be led away, I entered my room. “Be calm, be calm, go to bed - sleep! sleep!” - Mother shouted after me; however, tormented by unspeakable inner fear and anxiety, I could not close my eyes.

Hateful, vile Coppelius, his eyes sparkling, stood in front of me, laughing mockingly, and I tried in vain to drive his image away from me. That's right, it was already about midnight when a terrible blow was heard, as if fired from a cannon. The whole house shook, something rumbled and hissed near my door, and the front door slammed shut. "It's Coppelius!" - I exclaimed beside myself and jumped out of bed. And suddenly a piercing cry of inconsolable, unbearable grief was heard; I rushed to my father's room; the door was open wide, a suffocating fume was pouring towards me, the maid was screaming: “Oh, master, master!” My father lay on the floor in front of the smoking fire, dead, with a black, burnt, disfigured face; the sisters screamed and howled around him - his mother was unconscious. “Coppelius, fiend of hell, you killed my father!” - I exclaimed and lost consciousness. Two days later, when my father’s body was placed in a coffin, his features brightened again and became quiet and meek, as throughout his entire life. Consolation descended into my soul when I thought that his union with the infernal Coppelius would not bring upon him eternal condemnation.

The explosion woke up the neighbors, word spread about what had happened, and the authorities, having been notified of it, wanted to demand Coppelius to answer; but he disappeared from the city without a trace.

Now, my dear friend, when I reveal to you that the said seller of barometers was none other than the damned Coppelius, then you will not blame me for wrongly imagining that this hostile invasion will bring me great misfortune. He was dressed differently, but the figure and facial features of Coppelius were too deeply imprinted on my soul, so that I could not identify myself. Moreover, Coppelius did not even change his name. He poses here as a Piedmontese mechanic and calls himself Giuseppe Coppola.

I decided to have a good chat with him and avenge my father’s death, no matter the cost.

Don't say anything to your mother about the appearance of this vile sorcerer. Give my regards to dear Clara, I will write to her in a calmer frame of mind. Goodbye and stuff.

Clara to Nathanael

I’ll tell you frankly, I think that everything terrible and terrible that you are talking about happened only in your soul, and the real outside world had very little to do with it. Apparently, old Coppelius was indeed quite vile, but the fact that he hated children instilled in you a true disgust for him.

The scary Sandman from your nanny's fairy tale very naturally united in your childhood soul with old Coppelius, who, even when you stopped believing in the Sandman, remained for you a ghostly sorcerer, especially dangerous for children. His ominous meetings with your father at night were nothing more than secret studies of alchemy, with which your mother could not be happy, because, no doubt, a lot of money was wasted on this, and, as always happens with such adepts, these labors, filling the soul of your father with deceptive aspirations for high wisdom, distracted him from caring for his family. Your father probably caused his own death through his own carelessness, and Coppelius is not to blame for this. Would you believe it, yesterday I asked our knowledgeable neighbor, a pharmacist, whether such explosions could happen during chemical experiments, causing sudden death. He replied: “Of course!” - and described, as usual, very extensively and thoroughly how this could have been done, saying at the same time a lot of tricky words, of which I could not remember a single one. Now you will become annoyed with your Clara, you will say: “Not a single ray of that mysterious thing that so often wraps a person in invisible arms penetrates into this cold soul; she sees only the motley surface of the world and, like a childish child, rejoices at the golden fruits, in the core of which a deadly poison is hidden.”

Ah, beloved Nathanael, or can’t you believe that even a cheerful, carefree, carefree soul can feel the hostile penetration of a dark force seeking to destroy us in our own “I”? But forgive me if I, an uneducated girl, try to somehow explain what, in fact, I mean by this internal struggle. In the end, I will probably not find the proper words, and you will laugh at me, not because I have stupid thoughts, but because I try so awkwardly to express them.

If there is a dark force that hostilely and treacherously throws a noose into our soul in order to then capture us and drag us down a dangerous, destructive path where we would never have entered otherwise - if such a force exists, then it must take on our own image, become our “I”, for only in this case will we believe in it and give it the place in our soul that it needs for its mysterious work. But if our spirit is strong and strengthened by vital vigor, then it is able to distinguish an alien, hostile influence, precisely as such, and calmly follow the path where our inclinations and calling take us - then this ominous force will disappear in the vain struggle for its image , which should become a reflection of our self. “It is also true,” Lothar added, “that the dark physical force, which we indulge in only of our own free will, often populates our soul with alien images brought into it by the outside world, so that we ourselves only inflame our spirit, which, as it seems to us, in a strange delusion, speaks from this image. It is the phantom of our own self, whose inner affinity with us and its profound influence on our soul plunges us into hell or lifts us up to heaven.” Now you see, my priceless Nathanael, that we, brother Lothar and I, have talked quite a lot about dark forces and principles, and this matter - after I have not without difficulty stated the most important thing here - seems to me quite profound. I don’t quite understand Lothar’s last words, I just feel what he means by it, and yet it seems to me that all this is very fair. I beg you, completely throw out of your mind the vile lawyer Coppelius and barometer salesman Giuseppe Coppola. Imbued with the thought that these alien images have no power over you; only faith in their hostile power can make them truly hostile to you. If every line of your letter did not testify to the cruel confusion of your mind, if your condition did not crush me to the core, then I really could laugh at the lawyer Sandman and the barometer seller Coppelius. Be merry, merry! I decided to be your guardian angel and, as soon as the vile Coppola intends to disturb your sleep, I will appear to you and drive him away with a loud laugh. I am not at all afraid of him or his nasty hands, and he will not dare, under the guise of a lawyer, to spoil my delicacies or, like the Sandman, to fill my eyes with sand.

Yours forever, my dearly beloved Nathanael.

Nathanael - Lothar

I am very annoyed that the other day Clara, however, due to my absent-mindedness, mistakenly printed and read my letter to you. She wrote me a very thoughtful, philosophical letter, in which she proves at length that Coppelius and Coppola exist only in my imagination, they are just phantoms of my “I”, which will instantly crumble into dust if I recognize them as such. Indeed, who would have thought that the mind, so often shining like a sweet dream in those bright, charming, laughing children's eyes, could be so reasonable, so capable of masterful definitions. She refers to you. You talked about me together. You are probably giving her a full course in logic so that she can distinguish and separate everything so subtly. Give it up! However, there is now no doubt that the barometer seller Giuseppe Coppola is not the old lawyer Coppelius at all. I am listening to lectures from a professor of physics who recently arrived here, a natural Italian, whose name, like the famous naturalist, is Spalanzani. He has known Coppola for a long time, and, besides, one can notice from just one reprimand that he is a pure Piedmontese. Coppelius was a German, but, it seems to me, not a real one. I'm not completely calm yet. Consider me, both of you, you and Clara, if you want, a gloomy dreamer, I still cannot free myself from the impression that the damned face of Coppelius made on me. I'm glad he left town, as Spalanzani told me. By the way, this professor is an amazing eccentric. A short, stocky man with prominent cheekbones, a thin nose, protruding lips, and small, sharp eyes. But you will recognize him better than from any description when you look at the portrait of Cagliostro engraved by Chodowiecki in some Berlin pocket calendar. That's exactly what Spalanzani is! The other day I was going up the stairs to see him and noticed that the curtain, which is usually drawn tightly over the glass door, had curled slightly and left a small crack. I don’t know how it happened, but I looked there with curiosity. In the room, in front of a small table, with her hands clasped together on it, sat a tall, very slender, proportionate in all proportions, beautifully dressed girl. She sat opposite the door, so I could get a good look at her angelic face. She didn’t seem to notice me, in general there was some kind of numbness in her eyes, I could even say they lacked visual power, as if she was sleeping with her eyes open. I felt uneasy, and I quietly crept into the auditorium located nearby. Afterwards I learned that the girl I saw was the daughter of Spalanzani, named Olympia; he keeps her locked up with such astonishing severity that not a single person dares to penetrate her. In the end, there is some important circumstance hidden here, perhaps she is weak-minded or has some other defect. But why am I writing to you about all this? I could tell you all this better and more thoroughly in words. Know that in two weeks I will be with you. I absolutely must see my lovely, gentle angel, my Clara. Then the bad mood that (I confess) almost took possession of me after her ill-fated, judicious letter will dissipate, which is why I do not write to her today.

I bow countless times.

Novella

It is impossible to imagine anything more strange and amazing than what happened to my poor friend, the young student Nathanael, and what I am now going to tell you about, indulgent reader. Have you, gentle reader, ever experienced something that completely took over your heart, feelings and thoughts, crowding out everything else? Everything in you is seething and bubbling, inflamed blood boils in your veins and fills your cheeks with a hot blush. Your gaze is strange, it seems to catch images in the void that are invisible to others, and your speech is lost in unclear sighs. And so your friends ask you: “What is wrong with you, most respected? What is your concern, dearest?” And with all the fiery colors, all the shadows and light, you want to convey the visions that have arisen in you and you are trying to find words in order to even begin to tell the story. But it seems to you that from the very first word you must imagine all the wonderful, magnificent, scary, funny, terrifying things that happened to you, and strike everyone as if with an electric shock. However, every word, everything that our speech has, seems colorless, cold and dead to you. And you keep searching and catching, stuttering and babbling, and the sober questions of your friends, like an icy breath of wind, cool the heat of your soul until it goes out completely.

But if you, like a bold painter, first outline the outline of your inner vision with daring strokes, then you can easily apply more and more fiery colors, and a living swarm of motley images will captivate your friends, and together with you they will see themselves in the middle of the picture that arose in your soul. I must confess, kind reader, that no one actually asked me about the story of young Nathanael; but you know very well that I belong to that amazing breed of authors who, when they carry in themselves something like what was just described, immediately imagine that everyone they meet, and the whole world, is just asking: “What is it?” ? Tell me, my dear!”

And now I am irresistibly drawn to talk to you about the ill-fated life of Nathanael. Its strangeness, its unusualness struck my soul, and that’s why - and also so that I could - oh my reader! - to immediately incline you to understand everything wonderful, of which there is quite a lot here, - I tried with all my might to begin the story of Nathanael as cleverly as possible - more original, more captivating. “Once upon a time” is the most beautiful beginning for any story - too ordinary! “In a small provincial town S... lived” is somewhat better, at least it gives the beginning of a gradation. Or immediately through “medias in res”: “Get to hell,” cried the student Nathanael, and rage and horror were reflected in his wild gaze, when the barometer salesman Giuseppe Coppola...” So I really would have started when I thought that there was something funny in the wild gaze of the student Nathanael, but this story is not at all funny. Not a single phrase came to mind that even slightly reflected the rainbow radiance of the image that appeared before my inner gaze. I decided not to start at all. So, kind reader, take these three letters, which my friend Lothar willingly gave me, as the outline of a picture on which, as I narrate, I will try to apply more and more colors. Perhaps I will be lucky, like a good portrait painter, to capture other faces so accurately that you will find them similar without knowing the original, and it will even seem to you that you have already seen these people with your own eyes more than once. And perhaps then, O my reader, you will believe that there is nothing more amazing and crazy than real life itself, and that the poet can only imagine its vague reflection, as if in a rough-polished mirror.

In order to immediately say everything that needs to be known from the very beginning, it should be added to the previous letters that soon after the death of Nathanael’s father, Clara and Lothar, the children of a distant relative, who also recently died and left them orphans, were accepted into the family by Nathanael’s mother. Clara and Nathanael felt a lively inclination towards each other, which not a single person in the world could object to; they were already engaged when Nathanael left the city to continue his studies in the sciences in G. As can be seen from his last letter, he is now there and listening to lectures from the famous professor of physics Spalanzani.

Now I could calmly continue my story. But at this moment the image of Clara appears so vividly in my imagination that I cannot take my eyes off it, as it always happens to me when she looks at me with a sweet smile. Clara could not be called beautiful; This was the consensus of everyone who, according to their position, had an understanding of beauty. But the architects spoke with praise of the pure proportions of her figure, the painters found that her back, shoulders and chest were formed, perhaps, too chastely, but they were all captivated by her wonderful hair, like that of Mary Magdalene, and chatted endlessly about the coloring of Battoni. And one of them, a true science fiction writer, made a strange comparison, likening Clara’s eyes to Ruisdael’s lake, in the mirror surface of which the azure of a cloudless sky, forests and flowering pastures, the whole living, motley, rich, cheerful landscape are reflected. But poets and virtuosos went even further, assuring:

“What a lake there is, what a mirror-like surface there is! Have we ever seen this maiden without her gaze shining with the most wonderful heavenly harmony penetrating our soul, so that everything in it awakens and comes to life? If even then we don’t sing anything worthwhile, then we will be of little use at all, and we can clearly read this in the subtle smile that flashes on Clara’s lips when we decide to squeak in front of her something that claims to be called singing, although it is just incoherent and randomly jumping sounds."

And so it was. Clara was endowed with a lively and strong imagination, like a cheerful, spontaneous child, she had a woman's heart, tender and sensitive, and a very insightful mind. Thinking and philosophizing heads were not successful with her, for Clara’s bright gaze and the aforementioned subtle ironic smile, without unnecessary words, which were not at all characteristic of her silent nature, seemed to tell them: “Dear friends! How can you demand from me that I consider the blurry shadows you created to be genuine figures, full of life and movement?” That is why many reproached Clara for her coldness, insensitivity and matter-of-factness; but others, whose understanding of life was distinguished by clarity and depth, loved this warm-hearted, reasonable, trusting girl, like a child, but no one loved her more than Nathanael, who cheerfully and zealously practiced the sciences and arts. Clara was devoted to Nathanael with all her soul. The first shadows darkened her life when he was separated from her. With what admiration she threw herself into his arms when, as he promised in his last letter to Lothar, he finally and truly returned to his hometown and entered his parental home. Nathanael's hopes came true; for from the moment he met Clara, he no longer remembered either her philosophical letter or the lawyer Coppelius; the bad mood was completely eradicated.

However, Nathanael was right when he wrote to his friend Lothar that the image of the disgusting barometer salesman Coppola had perniciously penetrated his life. Everyone felt this, for from the first days of his stay Nathanael showed a complete change in his entire being. He plunged into a gloomy reverie and indulged in it with such strangeness that had never been noticed in him. His whole life consisted of dreams and premonitions. He constantly said that every person, imagining himself free, only serves the terrible game of dark forces; It will be in vain to resist them; one must humbly endure what is destined by fate itself. He went even further, arguing that it is very unreasonable to believe that in art and science one can create according to one’s own will, for inspiration, without which it is impossible to produce anything, is born not from our soul, but from the influence of some higher principle lying outside of us.

The sensible Clara was extremely disgusted by all these mystical nonsense, but all efforts to refute them, apparently, were in vain. Only when Nathanael began to prove that Conpelius was the evil principle that had possessed him from the moment he eavesdropped behind the curtain, and that this disgusting demon could terribly confuse their love happiness, Clara suddenly became very serious and said:

Yes, Nathanael! You are right. Coppelius is an evil, hostile principle; he, like the devilish force that has clearly penetrated into our lives, can produce the most terrible effect, but only if you do not purge him from your mind and heart. As long as you believe in him, he exists and has an effect on you; only your faith constitutes his power.

Nathanael, angry that Clara allowed the existence of a demon only in his own soul, began to present a whole doctrine about the devil and dark forces, but Clara, much to his chagrin, interrupted him with displeasure with some insignificant remark. He believed that cold, insensitive souls were not given the ability to comprehend such deep secrets, however, not realizing that he included Clara among such base natures, he did not give up trying to introduce her to these secrets. Early in the morning, when Clara was helping prepare breakfast, he stood next to her and read to her all kinds of mystical books, so that Clara finally said:

Ah, dear Nathanael, what if I decide to call you an evil principle that has a detrimental effect on my coffee? After all, if I drop everything and start listening to you without taking my eyes off, as you wish, then the coffee will certainly run away and everyone will be left without breakfast!

Nathanael hastily slammed the book shut and ran into his room in anger. Previously, he was especially good at composing funny, lively stories, which Clara listened to with unfeigned pleasure; now his creations had become gloomy, incomprehensible, formless, and although Clara, sparing him, did not talk about it, he still easily guessed how little they pleased her. Nothing was more intolerable to her than boredom; an irresistible mental drowsiness was immediately revealed in her looks and speeches. Nathanael's writings were indeed extremely boring. His annoyance at Clara's cold, prosaic disposition increased every day; Clara also could not overcome her displeasure with the dark, gloomy, boring mysticism of Nathanael, and thus, unnoticed by them, their hearts became more and more divided. The image of the disgusting Coppelius, as Nathanael admitted to himself, faded in his imagination, and it often cost him considerable effort to vividly imagine him in his poems, where he acted as a terrible fate. Finally, he decided to make the subject of the poem his dark premonition that Coppelius would confuse his love happiness. He imagined himself united with Clara with eternal love, but from time to time, as if a black hand invades their lives and steals one after another the joys bestowed upon them. Finally, when they are already standing in front of the altar, the terrible Coppelius appears and touches Clara’s lovely eyes; like bloody sparks, they penetrate Nathanael's chest, scorching and burning. Coppelius grabs him and throws him into a flaming circle of fire, which spins with the speed of a whirlwind and carries him along with a noise and roar. Everything howls, as if an evil hurricane is furiously scourging the boiling sea walls, rising like black, gray-headed giants. But in the midst of this wild rage, Clara’s voice is heard: “Aren’t you able to look at me? Coppelius deceived you, it was not my eyes that scorched your chest, it was the burning drops of the blood of your own heart - my eyes are intact, look at me!” Nathanael thinks: “This is Clara - and I am devoted to her forever!” And it’s as if this thought bursts into the circle of fire with irresistible force; it stops rotating, and a dull roar fades into the black abyss. Nathanael looks into Clara's eyes; but it is death itself that looks kindly at him through the eyes of its beloved.

In writing this, Nathanael was very reasonable and calm, he honed and improved every line, and since he subordinated himself to the metrical canons, he did not calm down until his verse reached complete purity and euphony. But when his work came to an end and he read his poems aloud, sudden fear and trembling seized him, and he cried out in a frenzy: “Whose terrifying voice is this?” Soon it seemed to him again that this was just a very successful poetic work, and he decided that it should ignite Clara’s cold soul, although he could not give himself a clear understanding of why, in fact, it was necessary to ignite her and where it would lead if he began to languish her terrifying images, which foreshadow a terrible and destructive fate for her love.

Nathanael and Clara were sitting one day in a small garden near the house; Clara was cheerful, because Nathanael did not torment her with his dreams and premonitions for three whole days, which he spent writing poetry. Nathanael, as before, spoke with great liveliness and joy about various cheerful subjects, so Clara said:

Well, finally you are completely mine again, do you see how we drove away this vile Coppelius?

But then Nathanael remembered that he had poems in his pocket that he intended to read to her. He immediately took out his notebook and began to read; Clara, as usual, expecting something boring, began to knit with patient resignation. But when the dark clouds began to thicken more and more, Clara dropped the stocking from her hands and looked intently into Nathanael’s eyes. He continued to read uncontrollably, his cheeks glowed from internal heat, tears flowed from his eyes - finally he finished, groaning from deep exhaustion, took Clara’s hand and sighed, as if in inconsolable grief: “Ah! Clara! Clara!" Clara tenderly pressed him to her chest and said quietly, but firmly and seriously:

Nathanael, my beloved Nathanael, throw this absurd, absurd, extravagant tale into the fire.

Then Nathanael jumped up and, passionately, pushing Clara away from him, shouted:

You soulless, damned automaton!

He ran away; the deeply offended Clara burst into bitter tears. “Oh, he never, never loved me, he doesn’t understand me!” - she exclaimed loudly, sobbing. Lothar entered the gazebo; Clara was forced to tell him everything that happened; he loved his sister with all his heart, every word of her complaint, like a spark, ignited his soul, so that the displeasure that he had long harbored against the dreamy Nathanael turned into furious anger. He ran after him and began to cruelly reproach him for his reckless act, to which the hot-tempered Nathanael answered him with the same fervor. The “extravagant, mad jester” was repaid in the name of a low, pitiful, ordinary soul. The fight was inevitable. They decided the next morning to meet outside the garden and exchange words with each other, according to the local academic custom, on sharply sharpened short rapiers. Gloomy and silent, they wandered around; Clara heard their argument and noticed that at dusk the fencing master brought rapiers. She foresaw what was going to happen. Arriving at the place of the duel, Nathanael and Lothar, still in the same gloomy silence, threw off their outer dress and, sparkling with their eyes, were ready to attack each other with bloodthirsty fury, when, opening the garden gate, Clara rushed towards them. Sobbing, she exclaimed:

Furious, rabid madmen! Stab me before you fight! How can I live in the world when my beloved kills my brother or my brother kills his beloved!

Lothar lowered his weapon and lowered his eyes in silence, but in Nathanael’s soul, along with a consuming melancholy, the old love that he felt for the lovely Clara in the carefree days of his youth was revived. He dropped the deadly weapon and fell at Clara's feet.

Will you ever forgive me, my Clara, my only love? Will you forgive me, my dear brother Lothar?

Lothar was touched by his deep sorrow. Reconciled, all three hugged each other and vowed to forever remain in unceasing love and fidelity.

It seemed to Nathanael that an immense weight had been lifted from him, pressing him to the ground, and that, by rebelling against the dark force that had taken possession of him, he had saved his entire being, which was threatened with destruction. He spent three more blissful days with his beloved friends, then went to G., where he planned to stay for another year, and then return to his hometown forever.

Everything that had to do with Coppelius was hidden from Nathanael’s mother, because they knew that she could not remember without a shudder the man whom she, like Nathanael, considered guilty of the death of her husband.

Imagine Nathanael’s surprise when, heading towards his apartment, he saw that the entire house had burned down and only bare charred walls were sticking out from under a pile of rubbish. Despite the fact that the fire started in the laboratory of the pharmacist who lived on the ground floor, and the house began to burn out from below, Nathanael’s brave and determined friends managed to get into his room, which was located under the very roof, in time and saved his books, manuscripts and instruments. Everything was transferred completely intact to another house, where they rented a room and where Nathanael immediately moved. He did not attach much importance to the fact that he now lived just opposite Professor Spalanzani, and in the same way it did not seem at all strange to him when he noticed that from his window he could see the room where Olympia often sat alone, so that he could clearly distinguish her figure, although her facial features remained vague and unclear. True, finally, he was surprised that Olympia remained for hours in the same position in which he had once seen her through the glass door; doing nothing, she sat at a small table, constantly fixing her motionless gaze on him; he had to admit that he had never seen such a beautiful figure; meanwhile, keeping the image of Clara in his heart, he remained completely indifferent to the stiff and motionless Olympia and only occasionally cast an absent-minded glance over the compendium at this beautiful statue, and that was all. And then one day, when he was writing a letter to Clara, there was a soft knock on his door; At his invitation to enter, the door opened and the disgusting head of Coppelius poked forward. Nathanael shuddered in his heart, but, remembering what Spalanzani told him about his fellow countryman Coppola and what he himself had sacredly promised to his beloved regarding the Sandman Coppelius, he was ashamed of his childish fear of ghosts, with an effort he overcame himself and said with possible meekness and calm:

I don't buy barometers, my dear, leave me alone!

But then Coppola completely entered the room and, twisting his huge mouth into a nasty smile, sparkling with small prickly eyes from under long gray eyelashes, said in a hoarse voice:

Eh, not a barometer, not a barometer! - have good eyes - good eyes!

Nathanael cried out in horror:

Madman, how can you sell your eyes? Eyes! Eyes!

But at that very moment Coppola put the barometers aside and, reaching into his large pocket, pulled out lorgnettes and glasses and began to lay them out on the table.

Well, there you go, - glasses, put glasses on your nose, - here's my eye, - good eyes!

And he kept pulling out and pulling out glasses, so that soon the whole table began to shine and flicker strangely. Thousands of eyes looked at Nathanael, blinked and stared convulsively; and he himself could no longer take his eyes off the table; and Coppola posted more and more points; and these flaming eyes sparkled and jumped more and more terrible, and their bloody rays struck Nathanael’s chest. Seized with inexplicable trepidation, he shouted:

Stop, stop, you terrible person!

He grabbed Coppola's hand tightly as he reached into his pocket to get more glasses, despite the fact that the entire table was already covered with them. With a nasty, hoarse laugh, Coppola quietly pulled away, saying:

Ah, - not for you, - but this is good glass. - He grabbed all the glasses into a pile, hid them and took out from his side pocket many small and large telescopes. As soon as the glasses were put away, Nathanael completely calmed down and, remembering Clara, realized that this terrible ghost arose in his own soul, as well as the fact that Coppola was a very respectable mechanic and optician, and in no way a cursed double and a descendant of that Sveta Coppelius. Also, in all the instruments that Coppola laid out on the table, there was nothing special, at least as ghostly as in the glasses, and, in order to make up for everything, Nathanael decided to actually buy something from Coppola. So, he took a small pocket telescope of very skillful workmanship and, to try it, looked out of the window. In all his life he had never come across glass that brought objects closer so accurately, purely and clearly. Involuntarily he looked into Spalanzani's room; Olympia, as usual, was sitting at a small table, with her hands on it and her fingers intertwined. It was only then that Nathanael saw the wondrous beauty of her face. Only his eyes seemed strangely motionless and dead to him. But the more closely he peered into the spyglass, the more it seemed to him that Olympia’s eyes were emitting a moist moonlight. It was as if visual power had only now been ignited in them; Her gaze became more and more alive. Nathanael stood spellbound at the window, constantly contemplating the heavenly beautiful Olympia. The coughing and shuffling that was heard near him woke him up as if from a deep sleep. Coppola stood behind him: “Tre zechini - three ducats.” Nathanael completely forgot about the optician; he hastily paid what he demanded.

Well, is the glass good? Is the glass good? - Coppola asked with an insidious grin in a vile, hoarse voice.

Yes Yes Yes! - Nathanael answered annoyedly.

Adieu, my dear. - Coppola walked away, never ceasing to cast strange sidelong glances at Nathanael. Nathanael heard him laughing loudly on the stairs. “Well,” he decided, “he’s laughing at me because I paid too much for this little telescope - I paid too much!” When he whispered these words, a chilling, deep, dying sigh was heard in the room; Nathanael's breath caught in his throat from the horror that filled him. But it was he who sighed like that, as he immediately convinced himself. “Clara,” he finally said to himself, “rightly considers me an absurd spirit seer, but isn’t it stupid - ah, more than stupid - that the absurd thought that I overpaid Coppola for glass still strangely worries me; I don't see any reason for this." And so he sat down at the table to finish the letter to Clara, but, looking out the window, he was convinced that Olympia was still in the same place, and at that very moment, as if urged by an irresistible force, he jumped up, grabbed Coppola’s spyglass and could no longer He could no longer look away from the seductive appearance of Olympia until his friend and sworn brother Sigmund came for him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture. The curtain that hid the fatal room was tightly drawn; neither this time nor in the next two days he could see Olympia either here or in her room, although he almost did not look up from the window and constantly looked into Coppola’s telescope. On the third day, even the windows were curtained. Full of despair, driven by melancholy and fiery desire, he ran out of town. The image of Olympia hovered in the air before him, protruding from behind the bushes, and with large bright eyes looked at him from a transparent spring. The image of Clara was completely erased from his heart; Thinking of nothing else but Olympia, he moaned loudly and sadly: “Oh, beautiful, mountain star of my love, have you really risen only to immediately disappear again and leave me in the darkness of a disconsolate night?”

Returning home, Nathanael noticed noisy movement in Professor Spalanzani's house. The doors were wide open, all kinds of furniture were brought in; the frames of the first-floor windows were exposed, busy maids scurried back and forth, sweeping the floor and brushing away dust with long hair brushes. The carpenters and upholsterers filled the house with the sound of hammers. Nathanael stopped in complete amazement in the middle of the street; Then Sigmund approached him and asked with a laugh:

Well, what can you say about old Spalanzani?

Nathanael replied that he absolutely could not say anything, because he knew nothing about the professor, moreover, he could not wonder why such a commotion and turmoil had arisen in such a quiet, unsociable house; Then he learned from Sigmund that Spalanzani was giving a big celebration, a concert and a ball tomorrow, and that half the university had been invited. There was a rumor that Spalanzani would show his daughter for the first time, whom he had so long and fearfully hidden from prying eyes.

Nathanael found an invitation card and at the appointed hour, with his heart beating strongly, he went to the professor, when the carriages had already begun to arrive and the decorated halls were shining with lights. The meeting was numerous and brilliant. Olympia appeared in a rich outfit, chosen with great taste. It was impossible not to admire the beautiful features of her face and her figure. Her somewhat strangely arched back, her wasp-thin waist, seemed to come from too much lacing. Some kind of regularity and rigidity was noticeable in her posture and gait, which unpleasantly surprised many; this was attributed to the pressure she felt in society. The concert has begun. Olympia played the piano with the greatest fluency, and also sang one bravura aria in a clear, almost harsh voice, like a crystal bell. Nathanael was beside himself with delight; he stood in the very last row, and the dazzling shine of the candles did not allow him to get a good look at the singer’s features. So he quietly took out Coppola's telescope and began to look through it at the beautiful Olympia. Ah, then he noticed with what longing she looked at him, how every sound first appeared in a gaze full of love, which ignited his soul. The most skillful roulades seemed to Nathanael to be the rejoicing of a soul, enlightened by love, ascending to the sky, and when at the end of the cadence a long ringing trill scattered across the hall, as if fiery arms had suddenly encircled him, he could no longer control himself and, in a frenzy of delight and pain, he cried out loudly: "Olympia!" Everyone turned to him, many laughed. The cathedral organist took on an even more gloomy look and said only: “Well, well!”

The concert ended and the ball began. “Dance with her! with her! This was the goal of all thoughts, all desires of Nathanael; but how can one find enough audacity to invite her, the queen of the ball? But still! When the dancing began, he, without knowing how, found himself next to Olympia, whom no one had yet invited, and, barely able to stammer a few inaudible words, took her hand. Olympia's hand was as cold as ice; he shuddered, feeling the terrifying cold of death; he looked intently into her eyes, and they lit up for him with love and desire, and at the same moment it seemed to him that a pulse began to beat in the veins of her cold hand and living hot blood began to boil in them. And now Nathanael’s soul was even more aflame with love; he embraced the body of the beautiful Olympia and rushed off with her in a dance. Until now, he believed that he always danced to the beat, but the peculiar rhythmic firmness with which Olympia danced rather confused him, and he soon noticed how little he kept to the beat. However, he did not want to dance with any other woman anymore and was ready to immediately kill anyone who came up to invite Olympia. But this happened only twice, and, to his amazement, Olympia, when the dancing began, remained in place each time, and he never tired of inviting her again and again. If Nathanael could see anything other than the beautiful Olympia, then some annoying quarrel and altercation would inevitably happen, for, there is no doubt, the quiet, barely restrained laughter that arose in the corners among the young people referred to the beautiful Olympia, on which they, for some unknown reason, kept turning curious gazes to. Inflamed by dancing and drinking plenty of wine, Nathanael cast aside his natural shyness. He sat next to Olympia and, without letting go of her hand, spoke with the greatest ardor and inspiration about his love in terms that no one could understand - neither he himself nor Olympia. However, she, perhaps, understood, for she did not take her eyes off him and sighed every minute: “Ah-ah-ah!”

In response, Nathanael said: “Oh, beautiful heavenly maiden!” You are a ray from the promised other world of love! In the crystal depths of your soul my entire existence is reflected! - and many other similar words, to which Olympia always answered only: “Ah-ah!” Professor Spalanzani walked past the happy lovers several times and, looking at them, smiled with some strange satisfaction. Meanwhile, Nathanael, although he was in a completely different world, suddenly felt that it had become darker in Professor Spalanzani’s chambers; he looked around and, to his considerable horror, saw that in the empty hall the last two candles were burning down and were about to go out. The music and dancing stopped long ago. “Separation, separation!” - he cried in confusion and despair. He kissed Olympia's hand, he leaned towards her lips, ice-cold lips met his flaming ones! And then he felt horror take possession of him, just as when he touched Olympia’s cold hand; the legend of the dead bride suddenly came to his mind; but Olympia pressed him tightly to her, and it seemed that the kiss filled her lips with life-giving warmth. Professor Spalanzani walked slowly around the empty hall; his steps were echoed loudly, unsteady shadows slid over his figure, giving him a terrifying, ghostly appearance.

Do you love me? Do you love me, Olympia? Just one word! Do you love me? - Nathanael whispered to her, but Olympia, getting up from her seat, just sighed: “Ah-ah!”

O beautiful, benevolent star of my love,” said Nathanael, “you have risen for me and will forever shine and transform my soul with your light!”

Ahah! - answered Olympia, walking away. Nathanael followed her; they found themselves in front of the professor.

“You had an unusually lively conversation with my daughter,” he said, smiling, “well, dear Mr. Nathanael, if you find pleasure in conversing with this timid girl, I will always be glad to see you at my place!”

Nathanael left, carrying the vast shining sky in his heart.

All the following days, the holiday of Spalanzani was the subject of urban gossip. And although the professor made every effort to show off his pomp and splendor, there were still scoffers who were able to talk about all sorts of oddities and absurdities that were noticed at the festival, and especially attacked the numb, silent Olympia, who, despite her beautiful appearance, was accused of complete stupidity, for which reason Spalanzani hid it for so long. Nathanael listened to these discussions not without hidden anger, but he was silent; for, he thought, is it worth the trouble to prove to these Burshes that their own stupidity prevents them from knowing the deep, beautiful soul of Olympia.

Do me a favor, brother,” Sigmund once asked him, “do me a favor and tell me how you managed to fall in love with this wooden doll, this wax figure?”

Nathanael almost became angry, but immediately came to his senses and answered:

Tell me, Sigmund, how could the unearthly delights of Olympia escape from your impressionable soul, from your clairvoyant eyes, always open to everything beautiful? But therefore - let us thank fate for this! - you did not become my rival; for then one of us must fall bleeding.

Sigmund immediately saw how far his friend had gone, skillfully changed the conversation and, noting that in love one can never judge the subject, added:

However, it is surprising that many of us have approximately the same opinion about Olympia. She appeared to us - don't complain, brother! - somehow strangely constrained and soulless. It’s true that her figure is proportionate and correct, just like her face! She could be considered a beauty if her gaze were not so lifeless, I would even say, devoid of visual power. There is some amazing regularity in her step, every movement seems to be subordinated to the movement of the wheels of the winding mechanism. In her playing, in her singing, the unpleasantly regular, soulless tact of a singing machine is noticeable; the same can be said about her dancing. We felt uneasy from the presence of this Olympia, and we really didn’t want to have anything to do with her, it still seemed to us that she was only acting like a living being, but there was some special circumstance hidden here.

Nathanael did not give free rein to the bitter feeling that overcame him after Sigmund’s words; he overcame his annoyance and only said with great seriousness:

It may turn out that you, cold prose writers, are uncomfortable with Olympia’s presence. But only the soul of the poet reveals itself to an organization similar in nature! Only her loving gaze shines on me, penetrating all my feelings and thoughts with radiance; only in Olympia’s love do I find myself again. You may not like the fact that she does not indulge in empty chatter, like other superficial souls. She is not eloquent, it is true, but her meager words serve as genuine hieroglyphs of the inner world, filled with love and the highest comprehension of spiritual life through the contemplation of the eternal otherworldly existence. However, you are deaf to all this, and my words are in vain.

May God protect you, dear brother! - said Sigmund with great tenderness, almost mournfully, - but it seems to me that you are on a bad path. Rely on me when everything... - no, I can’t say anything more!

Nathanael suddenly felt that the cold, prosaic Sigmund was unfeignedly devoted to him, and with great cordiality he shook the hand extended to him.

Nathanael completely forgot that Clara, whom he once loved, existed in the world; mother, Lothar - everything was erased from his memory, he lived only for Olympia and spent several hours every day with her, talking about his love, about awakened sympathy, about mental selective affinity, and Olympia listened to him with constant favor. From the farthest corners of his desk, Nathanael raked out everything he had ever written. Poems, fantasies, visions, novels, stories multiplied day by day, and all this, mixed with all sorts of chaotic sonnets, stanzas and canzones, he tirelessly read Olympia for hours on end. But he had never had such a diligent listener before. She didn’t knit or embroider, didn’t look out the window, didn’t feed the birds, didn’t play with the lap dog or her favorite cat, didn’t twirl a piece of paper or anything else in her hands, didn’t try to hide her yawning with a quiet feigned cough - in a word, whole for hours, without moving from her place, without moving, she looked into the eyes of her lover, not taking her motionless gaze off him, and this gaze became more and more fiery, more and more alive. Only when Nathanael finally got up from his seat and kissed her hand, and sometimes on the lips, did she sigh: “Ax-ax!” - and added:

Good night, my dear!

O beautiful, indescribable soul! - exclaimed Nathanael, return to your room, - only you, only you alone deeply understand me!

He trembled with inner delight when he thought about the amazing consonance of their souls that was revealed every day; for it seemed to him that Olympia drew judgment about his creations, about his poetic gift from the innermost depths of his soul, as if his own inner voice had sounded. So it must be assumed that it was; for Olympia never uttered any other words except those mentioned above. But if Nathanael, in bright, thoughtful moments, such as in the morning, immediately after waking up, remembered Olympia’s complete passivity and taciturnity, he still said: “What do words, words mean! The look of her heavenly eyes speaks to me more than any language on earth! And can a child of heaven fit himself into the narrow circle outlined by our pitiful earthly needs? Professor Spalanzani seemed extremely pleased with his daughter's relationship with Nathanael; he unequivocally showed him every sign of favor, and when Nathanael finally dared to bluntly express his desire to become engaged to Olympia, the professor broke into a smile and announced that he was giving his daughter a free choice. Encouraged by these words, with a fiery desire in his heart, Nathanael decided the very next day to beg Olympia with all frankness, in clear words, to tell him what her beautiful, loving gaze had long ago revealed to him - that she wanted to belong to him forever. He began to look for the ring that his mother gave him when they parted, in order to present it to Olympia as a symbol of his devotion, the emerging blossoming life together.

Letters from Clara and Lothar fell into his hands; he indifferently threw them away, found the ring, put it on his finger and flew to Olympia. Already on the stairs, already in the hallway, he heard an extraordinary noise, which seemed to be coming from Spalanzani’s study. Stomping, ringing, pushing, dull knocks on the door mixed with swearing and curses. “Let me go, let me go, you dishonest villain! I put my whole life into it! - Ha-ha-ha-ha! - There was no such agreement! - I, I made the eyes! - And I am the clockwork mechanism! - You're a blockhead with your mechanism! - Damn dog, brainless watchmaker! - Get out! - Satan! - Stop! Day laborer! Kanaglia! - Stop! - Get out! - Let me go! Those were the voices of Spalanzani and the disgusting Coppelius, thundering and raging, drowning each other out. Nathanael, gripped by inexplicable fear, rushed towards them. The professor was holding a female figure by the shoulders, the Italian Coppola was pulling her by the legs, both were dragging and tugging in different directions, trying with furious bitterness to take possession of her. Nathanael recoiled in unspeakable horror, recognizing Olympia; inflamed with insane anger, he wanted to rush to the raging people in order to take away his beloved; but at that very moment Coppola, with superhuman strength, tore the figure out of Spalanzani’s hands and dealt it to the professor with such a cruel blow that he staggered and fell backwards on a table filled with vials, retorts, bottles and glass cylinders; all these utensils shattered into pieces with a clang. And so Coppola hoisted the figure onto his shoulders and, with a vile, shrill laugh, hurriedly ran down the stairs, so that one could hear Olympia’s disgustingly dangling legs beating and clattering down the steps with a wooden thud.

Nathanael was numb - he now saw too clearly that Olympia’s deathly pale waxen face was devoid of eyes, in their place there were two black hollows: she was a lifeless doll. Spalanzani writhed on the floor, glass shards injured his head, chest and arm, blood flowed in streams. But he gathered all his strength.

In pursuit - in pursuit - why are you delaying? Coppelius, Coppelius, he stole my best machine gun... I worked on it for twenty years - I put my whole life into it; the winding mechanism, speech, movement - everything is mine. Eyes, eyes he stole from you! Damn you villain! Let's go! Give me back Olympia. Here are your eyes!

And then Nathanael saw bloody eyes on the floor, fixing a motionless gaze on him; Spalanzani grabbed them with his unharmed hand and threw them at him, so that they hit his chest. And then madness let its fiery claws into him and penetrated his soul, tearing apart his thoughts and feelings. “Live, live, live, - spin, circle of fire, spin, - have fun, have fun, doll, beautiful doll, - live, - spin, spin!” And he rushed at the professor and squeezed his throat. He would have strangled him if many people had not come running at the noise, burst into the house and, dragging the frantic Nathanael away, saved the professor and bandaged his wounds. Sigmund, no matter how strong he was, could not control the raging man; Nathanael incessantly shouted in a terrible voice: “Doll, spin, spin!” - and blindly beat around himself with his fists. Finally, with the combined efforts of several people, they managed to overcome him; he was thrown to the floor and tied up. His speech turned into a terrifying animal howl. So the frantic and disgustingly raging Nathanael was transported to a madhouse.

Gentle reader, before I continue my story of what happened next to the unfortunate Nathanael, I can, if you took some part in the skilled mechanic and master of automata Spalanzani, assure you that he was completely cured of his wounds. However, he was forced to leave the university, because Nathanael’s story aroused everyone’s attention and everyone considered it a completely unacceptable deception to smuggle a wooden doll into sensible, well-meaning social gatherings at the tea table instead of a living person (Olympia successfully attended such tea parties). Lawyers even called this a particularly skillful forgery and worthy of severe punishment, for it was directed against the entire society and set up with such cunning that not a single person (with the exception of some very astute students) noticed it, although now everyone shook their heads and referred to various circumstances that seemed very suspicious to them. But, to tell the truth, they didn’t find anything worthwhile. Could anyone, for example, find it suspicious that Olympia, according to one elegant tea-drinker, contrary to all decency, sneezed more often than she yawned? This, the dandy believed, was the self-winding of a hidden mechanism, which was why a crackling sound was clearly heard, etc. The professor of poetry and eloquence, taking a pinch of tobacco, slammed the snuffbox, cleared his throat and said solemnly: “Honorable gentlemen and ladies! Haven't you noticed what the problem is? All this is an allegory - a continuation of the metaphor. Do you understand me! Sapienti sat! However, most of the esteemed gentlemen were not reassured by such explanations; the story about the machine gun sank deep into their souls, and a disgusting distrust of human faces was instilled in them. Many lovers, in order to make sure that they were not captivated by a wooden doll, demanded that their beloved sing slightly out of tune and dance out of tune, that when they were read aloud, they knit, embroider, play with a lap dog, etc. etc., and most of all, so that they not only listen, but sometimes speak themselves, so that their speech really expresses thoughts and feelings. For many, love relationships strengthened and became more intimate, while others, on the contrary, calmly separated. “Truly, you can’t vouch for anything,” said one or the other. During the tea party, everyone yawned incredibly and no one sneezed, in order to avert any suspicion. Spalanzani, as already mentioned, was forced to leave in order to avoid judicial investigation in the case of “the fraudulent introduction of automata into society.” Coppola also disappeared.

Nathanael awoke as if from a deep, heavy sleep; he opened his eyes and felt an inexplicable joy enveloping him with tender heavenly warmth. He was lying on the bed, in his room, in his parents' house, Clara was bending over him, and his mother and Lothar were standing nearby.

Finally, finally, my beloved Nathanael, you have been healed of a serious illness - you are mine again! - this is what Clara said with heartfelt cordiality, hugging Nathanael.

Bright, hot tears of melancholy and delight flowed from his eyes, and he exclaimed with a groan:

Clara! My Clara!

Sigmund, who had been faithfully caring for his friend all this time, entered the room. Nathanael extended his hand to him.

Faithful friend and brother, you did not leave me!

All traces of insanity disappeared; Soon, under the care of his mother, lover, and friends, Nathanael completely recovered. Happiness visited their home again; the old, stingy uncle, from whom no inheritance was ever expected, died, refusing Nathanael's mother, in addition to a significant fortune, a small estate in a friendly area, not far from the city. They decided to move there: his mother, Nathanael, Clara, with whom he now decided to marry, and Lothar. Nathanael, more than ever, became soft and childishly warm-hearted, only now Clara’s heavenly pure, beautiful soul was revealed to him. No one gave even the slightest hint that could remind him of the past. Only when Sigmund was leaving did Nathanael say to him:

By God, brother, I was on a bad path, but an angel brought me to a bright path in time! Ah, it was Clara!

Sigmund did not allow him to continue, fearing that deeply wounding memories would flare up in him with blinding force. The time came when the four lucky ones had to move to their estate. Around noon they walked through the city. Made some purchases; the tall tower of the town hall cast a gigantic shadow over the market.

That’s it,” said Clara, “shouldn’t we go up to take another look at the surrounding mountains?”

No sooner said than done. Both Nathanael and Clara climbed the tower, the mother and the maid went home, and Lothar, not a big fan of climbing stairs, decided to wait for them below. And so the lovers stood hand in hand on the upper gallery of the tower, their gaze wandering in the misty forests, behind which blue mountains rose like gigantic cities.

Look at this strange little gray bush, it seems to be moving straight towards us,” said Clara.

Nathanael automatically put his hand in his pocket; he found Coppola's telescope, looked to the side... Clara was in front of him! And so the blood began to beat and boil in his veins - completely dead, he fixed his motionless gaze on Clara, but immediately a fiery stream, boiling and scattering fiery splashes, flooded his rotating eyes; he roared horribly, like a hunted animal, then jumped high and, interrupting himself with a disgusting laugh, shouted piercingly: “Doll, doll, spin around! Doll, spin, spin!” - he grabbed Clara with frantic force and wanted to throw her down, but Clara, in despair and in mortal fear, tightly grabbed the railing. Lothar heard the fury of the madman, heard Clara's heart-rending cry; a terrible premonition seized him, he rushed headlong upstairs; the door to the second gallery was locked; Clara's desperate cries became louder and louder. Unconscious with fear and rage, Lothar pushed the door with all his might, so that it swung open. Clara’s screams became increasingly muffled: “Help! save, save..." - her voice died away. “She died - she was killed by a frenzied madman!” - Lothar shouted. The door to the upper gallery was also locked. Despair gave him incredible strength. He knocked the door off its hinges. Good God! Clara struggled in the arms of the madman, who threw her over the railing. She was clinging to the iron column of the gallery with only one hand. With the speed of lightning, Lothar grabbed his sister, pulled her to him and at the same instant hit the enraged Nathanael in the face with his fist, so that he recoiled, releasing his victim from his hands.

Lothar ran downstairs, carrying the unconscious Clara in his arms. She was saved. And so Nathanael began to rush around the gallery, jumping and shouting: “Circle of fire, spin, spin! Circle of fire, spin, spin! People began to come running to his wild cries; in the crowd loomed the lanky figure of the lawyer Coppelius, who had just returned to the city and immediately came to the market. They were going to climb the tower to tie up the madman, but Coppelius said with a laugh: “Ha-ha, wait a little, he will come down on his own,” and began to look along with everyone. Suddenly Nathanael became motionless, as if numb, leaned down, saw Coppelius and with a piercing cry:

“Ah... Eyes! Nice eyes!..” - jumped over the railing.

When Nathanael fell onto the pavement with his head smashed, Coppelius disappeared into the crowd.

They say that many years later, in a remote area, Clara was seen, sitting in front of a beautiful country house, hand in hand with her friendly husband, and two playful boys playing next to them. From this we can conclude that Clara finally found family happiness, which corresponded to her cheerful, cheerful disposition and which the confused Nathanael would never have given her.

"Sandman"

In The Sandman, the problem of social doubles is posed much more acutely. The clockwork doll Olympia is precisely the accumulation of all possible cliches that society needs to recognize a person, and nothing more. Society, it turns out, does not need a human soul, does not need individuality, a mechanical doll is quite enough. And here this problem also intersects with the problem of egoism - no one needs human opinions and thoughts - they need to be listened to, recognized and agreed, and that’s enough.

Let us turn to the work of Berkovsky: “Hoffmann loved to laugh at what conveniences the automaton man brings into the life of his environment. Immediately all concern for one’s neighbor disappears, there is no concern about what he needs, what he thinks, what he feels...”

The main character is Nathaniel. His childhood friend Clara.

A certain triangle - there are two female images around Nathaniel. Clara is more like a friend, she has spiritual beauty, she loves him very devotedly, but she seems to him, to some extent, earthly, too simple. What is better - benefit without beauty or beauty without benefit? Olympia is a typically Hoffmannian motif of a doll, and a doll is an external resemblance of a living thing, devoid of life. Love for a doll leads to madness and suicide.

In the short story “The Sandman,” student Nathaniel could not help but fall in love with a doll named Olympia, which Professor Spallanzani slipped him - she only listens, but does not say anything, does not judge, does not criticize; Nathaniel has great confidence that she approves of his works, which he reads in front of her, that she admires them.

Olympia is a wooden doll, thrust into the society of living people, also living as a human among them, an impostor, a deceiver. Those who accept the lie and are deceived by it suffer retribution - they themselves become infected with its wooden qualities, become stupid, and become fooled, as happened with Nathaniel. However, Nathaniel ended up in madness...” In Olympia, Nathanael, like Narcissus, admires only himself, in her he loves his reflection, at the expense of her he satisfies his ambitions. And it doesn’t matter to him whether the doll has a heart.

Doubleness - both Clara and Olympia are Nathaniel's doubles. Clara is a living, bright principle, Olympia is a dark, irrational principle, a gravitation towards absolute perfection.

Nathanael, like Anselm, is a romantic, one of those who are given the ability to see another reality. But his selfishness and fear allow him to see only the road down. His romanticism is turned inward, not outward. This closeness does not allow him to see reality.

Not giving dark forces a place in your soul is the problem that worries Hoffmann, and he increasingly suspects that it is the romantically exalted consciousness that is especially susceptible to this weakness.

Clara, a simple and sensible girl, tries to heal Nathanael in her own way: as soon as he starts reading his poems to her with their “gloomy, boring mysticism,” she knocks down his exaltation with a sly reminder that her coffee can run away. But that is precisely why she is not a decree for him.

But the clockwork doll Olympia, who can sigh languidly and periodically let out “Ah!” when listening to his poems, turns out to be preferable to Nathanael, seems to him like a “soul mate,” and he falls in love with her, not seeing, not understanding that this is just a cunning mechanism, machine.

Hoffmann’s technique in “The Sandman” is interesting - Nathanael calls Clara “...a soulless, damned automaton,” and in Olympia he recognizes the highest harmonious soul. There is a cruel irony in this substitution - Nathanael’s egoism knows no bounds, he loves only himself and is ready to accept only his own reflections into his world.

Olympia is the embodiment of a mockery of society. And this mockery was designed precisely to awaken the conscience of people of the “pious society.” Even from the text it is clear that Hoffmann had a clear hope for at least some positive reaction, although weak.

One of the main symbols that runs through the entire narrative is “eyes”. The gloomy Coppelius, as a child, tries to deprive little Nathanael of his eyes, the Sandman pours sand into the eyes of naughty children, the barometer seller Coppola (a double of Coppelius, an expression of the same dark force) tries to sell Nathanael's eyes and sells a spyglass, Olympia's empty eyes, then bloody eyes dolls that Spalanzani throws into Nathanael's chest, etc. and so on. There are many meanings hidden behind this motif, but the main one is this: eyes are a symbol of spiritual vision, true vision. Anyone who has “real eyes” and a lively gaze is able to see the world and perceive its true beauty. But those who are deprived of eyes or have replaced them with artificial ones are doomed to see the world distorted and corrupted. And since the eyes are the windows of the soul, corresponding changes occur in the soul.

Having succumbed to dark forces, Nathanael agrees to change his “eyes” - he buys a spyglass from Coppola. “The mechanical is terrifying when we are directly shown the living, supplanted by the mechanical, when all the claims of the mechanical, all its anger and deception are evident. The old charlatan optician Coppola-Coppelius takes lorgnettes and glasses from his pocket and places them in front of him. He takes out more and more glasses, the whole table is occupied with them, from under the glasses real living eyes sparkle and glow, thousands of eyes; their gaze is convulsive, inflamed, rays red as blood pierce Nathaniel. In this episode, the semantic center of the short story about the sandman is the substitution of mechanical art for the living and original, the usurpation carried out by the mechanical. And he did this due to his egoism, he did not want to see beyond his own nose, as we notice this already in his letters . He wants to recognize only his own vision and no one else’s, so he is initially ready to change his true vision and take the dark path. When he makes his choice, a chilling dying sigh was heard in his room - this sigh meant the spiritual death of Nathanael. He retains the ability to see the hidden world, but only its dark part, the abode of horror, deception and lies.

However, merciful fate gives Nathanael a chance - after terrible events, Clara saves him, he himself calls her the angel who led him to a bright path. But he can’t resist... When he and Clara go up to the town hall to survey the beauty of nature, he looks into the damned spyglass - then madness completely consumes him. He can no longer look at the world openly; once he has descended into the abyss of horror, he is no longer able to return from there.

The entire novel is a path of the soul to degradation encrypted with symbols. The key to the dark path is selfishness, accompanied by unbelief and doubt. And the well-deserved reward is madness and suicide, as one of the main sins.

"Little Tsakhes"

The fairy tale “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober” (1818) opens up to us the endless horizons of Hoffmann’s artistic anthropology. The tale clearly shows Hoffmann's two-worldness in his perception of reality, which is again reflected in the two-dimensional composition of the short story, in the characters and their arrangement.

A person conceals within himself such possibilities that he is sometimes unaware of, and some kind of force and, perhaps, circumstances are needed to awaken in him an awareness of his abilities. By creating a fairy-tale world, Hoffmann seems to place a person in a special environment in which not only the contrasting faces of Good and Evil are revealed, but subtle transitions from one to the other. And in the fairy tale, Hoffmann, on the one hand, in masks and through the masks of Good and Evil, revives the polar principles in man, but on the other hand, the development of the narrative removes this polarization clearly indicated at the beginning of the fairy tale. The author ends his story about the misadventures of Tsakhes with a “happy ending”: Balthazar and Candida lived in a “happy marriage.”

The plot of the story begins with a contrast: the beautiful fairy Rosabelvelde bends over a basket with a little freak - little Tsakhes. The mother of this “tiny werewolf” is sleeping next to the basket: she is tired of carrying a heavy basket and complaining about her unhappy fate. The plot of the story is not only contrasting, but also ironic: how many different troubles will happen because the beautiful fairy then took pity on the ugly child - and gave little Tsakhes the magical gift of golden hairs.

Soon her charms will begin to affect the inhabitants of the “enlightened” principality. And here’s how: if there is some handsome man near the ugly baby, then everyone will suddenly begin to admire the beauty of Little Tsakhes, if someone reads his poetry next to him, then Zinnober will begin to applaud. The violinist will play a concert - everyone will think: this is Tsakhes. If the student passes the exam with flying colors, all the glory will go to Tsakhes. Other people's merits will go to him. And, on the contrary, his ridiculous antics and inarticulate muttering will pass on to others. The golden hairs of the “tiny werewolf” will appropriate and alienate the best properties and achievements of those around him.

It is not surprising that Zinnober soon makes a brilliant career at the court of Prince Barzanuf, the heir of Paphnutius. Whatever Tsakhes mumbles, the prince and his retinue admire: the new rank of Tsakhes, the Order of Tsakhes. So he rises to the rank of Minister of Foreign Affairs, an all-powerful temporary worker. The higher the little freak rises on the social ladder, the clearer the fairy's grotesque play. If such absurdities occur in a rationally structured society, an enlightened state, then what are reason, enlightenment, society, and the state worth? Tsakhes is being assigned more and more ranks - so aren’t these ranks nonsense? Tsakhes is given orders - so why are they better than children's toys? Having performed an insidious trick with Zinnober, the oppressed and expelled fantasy in the person of the fairy cheerfully takes revenge on the common sense and sober mind that oppresses it. She hits them with a paradox, convicts them of inconsistency, makes a diagnosis: common sense is meaningless, reason is reckless.

Why are Zinnober's hairs always golden? This detail reveals a grotesque metonymy.

Little Tsakhes's spell begins to work when he finds himself in front of the mint: the golden hairs metonymically imply the power of money. Having bestowed golden hairs on the freak, the crafty fairy targets a sore spot in “intelligent” civilization - its obsession with gold, mania for hoarding and wastefulness. The crazy magic of gold is such that natural properties, talents, and souls are put into circulation, appropriated and alienated.

However, someone needs to break the spell and overthrow the evil dwarf. The wizard Prosper Alpanus bestows this honor on the dreamy student Balthasar. Why him? Because he understands the music of nature, the music of life.

“The two-dimensional nature of the novella is revealed in the contrast between the world of a poetic dream, the fabulous country of Dzhinnistan, and the world of real everyday life, the principality of Prince Barsanuf, in which the novella takes place. Some characters and things lead a dual existence here, as they combine their fabulous magical existence with existence in the real world. Fairy Rosabelverde, who is also the canoness of the Rosenschen shelter for noble maidens, patronizes the disgusting little Tsakhes, rewarding him with three magical golden hairs.

In the same dual capacity as the fairy Rosabelverde, who is also Canoness Rosenschen, appears the good wizard Alpanus, who surrounds himself with various fairy-tale wonders, which the poet and dreamer student Balthazar clearly sees. In his everyday incarnation, only accessible to philistines and sober-minded rationalists, Alpanus is just a doctor, prone, however, to very intricate quirks.

Hoffmann's tale, thus, told us to a lesser extent about the "deeds" of heroes who were polar in their essence, but more about the diversity and many-sidedness of man. Hoffman, as an analyst, showed the reader in an exaggerated form the human condition, their personified separate existence. However, the whole fairy tale is an artistic study of man in general and his consciousness.

"Everyday views of Kota Murr"

The novel “The Everyday Views of the Cat Murr” brought together all of Hoffmann’s creative experience; here all the themes of his previous works are evident.

If the short story “Little Tsakhes” is already marked by a clear shift in emphasis from the world of fantasy to the real world, then this trend was reflected to an even greater extent in the novel “The Everyday Views of Cat Murr, coupled with fragments of the biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, which accidentally survived in waste paper sheets” (1819- 1821).

The dualism of Hoffman's worldview remains and even deepens in the novel. But it is expressed not through the opposition of the fairy-tale world and the real world, but through the disclosure of real conflicts of the latter, through the general theme of the writer’s work - the artist’s conflict with reality. The world of magical fantasy completely disappears from the pages of the novel, with the exception of some minor details associated with the image of Maester Abraham, and all the author’s attention is focused on the real world, on the conflicts occurring in contemporary Germany, and their artistic understanding is freed from the fairy-tale-fantastic shell. This does not mean, however, that Hoffman becomes a realist, taking the position of determinism of characters and plot development. The principle of romantic convention, the introduction of conflict from the outside, still determines these basic components. In addition, it is enhanced by a number of other details: this is the story of Maester Abraham and the “invisible girl” Chiara with a touch of romantic mystery, and the line of Prince Hector - monk Cyprian - Angela - Abbot Chrysostom with extraordinary adventures, ominous murders, fatal recognitions, as it were moved here from the novel The Devil's Elixir.

The composition of the novel is based on the principle of biplane, the opposition of two antithetical principles, which in their development are skillfully combined by the writer into a single narrative line. A purely formal technique becomes the main ideological and artistic principle for the embodiment of the author’s idea, the philosophical understanding of moral, ethical and social categories. The autobiographical narrative of a certain learned cat Murr is interspersed with excerpts from the biography of the composer Johannes Kreisler. Already in the combination of these two ideological and plot plans, not only by their mechanical connection in one book, but also by the plot detail that the owner of the cat Murra, Maester Abraham, is one of the main characters Kreisler's biography contains a deep ironic parody meaning. The dramatic fate of a true artist, a musician, tormented in an atmosphere of petty intrigue, surrounded by high-born nonentities of the chimerical principality of Sieghartsweiler, is contrasted with the existence of the “enlightened” philistine Murr. Moreover, such a contrast is given in simultaneous comparison, for Murr is not only the antipode of Kreisler.

You need to be very clear about the structural features of this novel, emphasized by its composition itself. This structure is unusual for Hoffmann. Outwardly, it may seem that Murr's biography and Kreisler's biography are a repetition of Hoffmann's division of the world into two parts: artists and philistines. But things are more complicated. The two-plane structure is already present in the biography of Kreisler itself (Kreisler and the Court of Irenaeus). What is new here is precisely the Murrah line (the second structure is built on top of the first). Here the cat is trying to appear before the reader as an enthusiast, a dreamer. This idea is very important to understand, because usually students during the exam, hastily leafing through the novel, stubbornly insist that Murr is a philistine, period. In fact, Murr's biography is a parodic mirror of Hoffmann's earlier romantic structure. And both parts exist only in interaction. Without Murr, it would have been another typically Hoffmannian story; without Kreisler, it would have been a wonderful example of satirical, self-exposing irony, which is very common in world literature (something like “The Wise Minnow” by Saltykov-Shchedrin). But Hoffmann here juxtaposes parody with a high romantic style, which gives his irony an absolutely murderous character. Murr is, as it were, the quintessence of philistinism. He imagines himself outstanding personality, a scientist, poet, philosopher, and therefore he chronicles his life “for the edification of promising feline youth.” But in reality, Murr is an example of that “harmonic vulgarity” that was so hated by the romantics.

The whole cat-and-dog world in the novel is a satirical parody of the class society of the German states: the “enlightened” philistine burghers, the student unions - Burschenschafts, the police (the yard dog Achilles), the bureaucratic nobility (Spitz), the high aristocracy (the poodle Scaramouche , Badina's Italian greyhound salon).

But Hoffmann’s satire becomes even more acute when he chooses the nobility as its object, encroaching on its upper strata and on those state and political institutions that are associated with this class. Leaving the ducal residence, where he was the court bandmaster, Kreisler ends up with Prince Irenaeus, at his imaginary court. The fact is that once the prince “really ruled over a picturesque landlady near Sieghartsweiler. From the belvedere of his palace, with the help of a telescope, he could survey his entire state from edge to edge... At any moment it was easy for him to check whether Peter’s wheat had grown in the most remote corner of the country, and with the same success to see how carefully his own crops had been cultivated. Hans and Kunz vineyards. The Napoleonic Wars deprived Prince Irenaeus of his possessions: he “dropped his toy state from his pocket during a short promenade to a neighboring country.” But Prince Irenaeus decided to preserve his small court, “turning life into a sweet dream in which he and his retinue lived,” and the good-natured burghers pretended that the false splendor of this ghostly court brought them fame and honor.

Prince Irenaeus is not an exceptional representative for Hoffmann in his spiritual wretchedness; of his class. The entire princely house, starting with the illustrious father Irenaeus, are weak-minded and flawed people. And what is especially important in Hoffmann’s eyes is that the high-ranking nobility, no less than the enlightened philistines from the burgher class, are hopelessly far from art: “It may well turn out that the love of the greats of this world for the arts and sciences is only an integral part of court life. The regulations oblige us to have paintings and listen to music.”

In the arrangement of characters, the scheme of opposition between the poetic world and the world of everyday prose, characteristic of Hoffman’s two-dimensionality, is preserved. The main character of the novel is Johannes Kreisler. In the writer’s work, he is the most complete embodiment of the image of the artist, the “wandering enthusiast.” It is no coincidence that Hoffman gives many autobiographical features to Kreisler in the novel. Kreisler, Master Abraham and the daughter of adviser Bentzon Julia make up in the work a group of “true musicians” opposing the court of Prince Irenaeus.

Although the novel is not completed, the hopelessness and tragedy of the fate of the bandmaster, in whose image Hoffmann reflected the irreconcilable conflict of a true artist with the existing social order, becomes clear to the reader.

E. Hoffmann is one of the most prominent representatives of the era of German romanticism. His work is very multifaceted: in addition to literary activities, he composed music and painted. At the same time, his works are distinguished by their originality, which makes his fairy tales completely different from the traditional works of the romantics of the era under study. Therefore this writer takes special place in the history of world literature.

Briefly about the author

He was born into the family of a simple lawyer and after completing his studies he chose the same profession. However, the study and subsequent civil service weighed heavily on him, and he tried to make a living through art, but to no avail. The situation improved somewhat after the writer received a small inheritance. Despite the difficulties, he did not give up writing, but his works did not find a response from German critics and readers. At the same time, his works were popular in other Western European countries, in Russia, as well as in the USA.

Creation

Hoffmann's romance is very specific and differs from what representatives of this movement wrote. Most authors approached the subjects and characters they depicted very seriously, glorifying the idea of ​​absolute freedom. But Ernst Amadeus abandoned these guidelines, introducing elements of sharp satire into his narrative. In addition, the author abandoned the utopian ideals of freedom, concentrating exclusively on the characters of his heroes. Hoffmann's tales are fantastic and tinged with horror, but, nevertheless, they are not so much frightening as they are instructive. The author's humor is also very specific. The writer, in a caustic and very ironic form, ridicules the vices of his contemporary society, for which, perhaps, his works were not very popular in his homeland. But in our country he received recognition. Belinsky called him the greatest poet, and Dostoevsky became seriously interested in his works; moreover, Hoffmann's fairy tales were reflected in the works of the novelist.

Peculiarities

A characteristic feature of the writer’s works was the close interweaving of reality and fantasy. But the latter is not perceived by the author as something out of the ordinary: on the contrary, he portrays it as something taken for granted, as the other side of everyday human existence. His characters seem to live a double life: in the ordinary world and in a fairy-tale setting. An example of such a fairy tale is Hoffmann's short story “The Sandman”. This is one of his most popular works, which has become the author’s calling card. The essay is based on folk legends, but at the same time it reflects the realities of the author’s contemporary era. The fairy tale short story turned out to be so popular that its motifs are used in popular culture. One of the main storylines It even became an integral part of the libretto of the famous French opera.

Composition

Of particular interest is the question of how he built his narrative in the summary under consideration (“The Sandman” in this respect differs from other fairy tales), unfortunately, it does not convey the full originality of the structure of the text. And she is very unusual. The author, as if not knowing how to tell his reader this unusual story, chooses a very interesting form of narration. The tale begins with correspondence between the main character and his friend Lothar and his bride Clara. After retelling the contents of the letters, the writer moved directly to the climax of the action and its denouement. This composition allows us to better understand the character of the hero, who fell into madness and ended his life tragically. In the letters, the reader gets acquainted with the complex and extremely contradictory inner world of Nathaniel, who is in terrible turmoil due to childhood trauma: nightmares haunt him, and even all the attempts of the bride to distract him from heavy thoughts are unsuccessful. In the second part of the story, the reader sees the hero as if from the outside, already knowing about his mental suffering. But now we see their terrible external manifestation, which leads to tragedy.

The beginning

In the analyzed work, Hoffman showed himself to be one of the best masters of human psychology in world literature. A summary (“The Sandman” is distinguished by its dramatic and complex plot, despite the apparent simplicity of the structure) of the fairy tale should begin with a mention of the correspondence of friends, from which we learn its backstory. Nathaniel tells his friend a terrible story that happened to him as a child. The nanny frightened him with a fairy tale about the sandman, who supposedly punishes those children who do not want to go to bed. The memories of this were so deeply etched in his memory that the child’s imagination was in some way crippled. The final blow to the child's psyche was dealt after one terrible incident that he witnessed.

In the work under consideration, Hoffmann showed himself to be a master of scary fiction. The summary (“Sandman” is a rather gloomy short story) of the essay is not able to convey all the intensity of passions and the complex internal struggle of the main character; the text should be read in full. But since we are limited by the scope of the article, we will make do with an abbreviated retelling. Nathaniel witnessed the terrible death of his father, who conducted experiments with a strange professor who visited their home. One evening the boy spied how this stranger was conducting experiments with his eyes, and after the experiment his father tragically died. The child is sure that the professor is a murderer and vows revenge.

Plot development

In the analyzed essay, Hoffman proved his skill in depicting human psychology. Summary (“The Sandman” is a work with deep philosophical overtones, despite the presence of fantastic elements) of the fairy tale is dynamic due to the rapid development of events and at the same time authentic in the depiction of characters. In the next letter, Nathaniel tells how he met an unusual physics teacher and began to study with him. There he met a mechanic who was very similar to the professor who killed his father. The hero was preparing to take revenge, but the bride, in a reply letter, persuaded him to abandon the dark thoughts that could drive him crazy. After some time, the hero reported that he was mistaken: the mechanic simply looked like a professor, and in order to somehow appease him, the hero bought a spyglass from him, through which he began to observe his teacher’s daughter, Olympia, who turned out to be a very beautiful girl. It was in vain that Nathaniel’s friends assured him that she was very strange and resembled a mechanical doll (as it turned out later): the hero did not want to hear anything and, forgetting about his bride, decided to propose to Olympia.

Further events

One of the most controversial storytellers was Hoffmann. “The Sandman,” the analysis of which is the subject of this review, is the best confirmation of this. The gloomy flavor of the work is felt especially strongly as we approach the denouement. The hero was dissatisfied with Clara, who turned out to be a simple and sincere girl, not subject to superstitious fears and false impressions. Nathaniel read his dark stories to her, but she did not perceive them, which he took for indifference and stupidity, while Olympia listened to the young man, without being distracted by anything. Deciding to propose to her, the young man came to her father’s house, but to his horror he found a terrible picture: the teacher and the terrible professor broke the doll. Nathaniel went crazy from what he saw.

Character of the hero and denouement

The author focuses on the image of the main character, a very impressionable young man who was never able to get rid of his childhood obsession. Despite his love for Clara, a simple and sincere girl, he still succumbed to his superstitious fears, which led him to madness. Unfortunately, the good inclinations in him were destroyed by a broken psyche, which neither Clara’s love nor the friendship of her brother Lothair could heal. In the finale, the hero returns home and, after temporarily feeling better, spends time with his fiancée. But one day he looks at it again and goes crazy again. Almost killing Clara, he commits suicide. So, the writer’s popular fairy tale is “The Sandman.” Hoffman, whose reviews of his book, despite all the tragedy, turned out to be very positive, entered world literature precisely as the creator of works with an unusual coloring and a gloomy tint, but with a specific humor, which was noticed by many readers and critics.