me for the history of the young Nathaniel, but you know well
enough that I belong to the queer race of authors, who, if they have
any thing in their mind, such as I have just described, feel as if
every one who comes near them, and indeed perhaps the whole world
besides, is asking them: "What is it then--tell it, my dear friend?"
Thus was I forcibly compelled to tell you of the momentous life of
Nathaniel. The singularity and marvellousness of the story filled my
entire soul, but for that very reason and because, my reader, I had to
make you equally inclined to endure oddity, which is no small matter, I
tormented myself to begin the history of Nathaniel in a manner as
inspiring, original and striking as possible. "Once upon a time," the
beautiful beginning of every tale, was too tame. "In the little
provincial town of S---- lived"--was somewhat better, as it at least
prepared for the climax. Or should I dart at once _medias in res_,
with "Go to the devil, cried the student Nathaniel with rage and horror
in his wild looks, when the barometer-seller, Guiseppe Coppola?"--I had
indeed already written this down, when I fancied that in the wild looks
of the student Nathaniel, I could detect something ludicrous, whereas
the story is not comical at all. No form of language suggested itself
to my mind, which even in the slightest degree seemed to reflect the
colouring of the internal picture. I resolved that I would not begin
it at all. So take, gentle reader, the three letters, which friend
Lothaire was good enough to give me, as the sketch of the picture which
I shall endeavour to colour more and more as I proceed in my narrative.
Perhaps, like a good portrait-painter, I may succeed in catching many a
form in such a manner, that you will find it is a likeness without
having the original, and feel as if you had often seen the person with
your own corporeal eyes. Perchance, dear reader, you will then believe
that nothing is stranger and madder than actual life, and that this is
all that the poet can conceive, as it were in the dull reflection of a
dimly polished mirror.

In order that that which it is necessary in the first place to know,
may be made clearer, we must add to these letters the circumstance,
that shortly after the death of Nathaniel's father, Clara and Lothaire,
the children of a distant relative, who had likewise died, and left
them orphans, were taken by Nathaniel's mother to her own home. Clara
and Nat