press
our vexation in stifled sobs. He habitually called us the "little
brutes;" and when he was present we might not utter a sound; and we
cursed the ugly spiteful man who deliberately and intentionally spoilt
all our little pleasures. Mother seemed to dislike this hateful
Coppelius as much as we did; for as soon as he appeared her
cheerfulness and bright and natural manner were transformed into sad,
gloomy seriousness. Father treated him as if he were a being of some
higher race, whose ill-manners were to be tolerated, whilst no efforts
ought to be spared to keep him in good-humour. He had only to give a
slight hint, and his favourite dishes were cooked for him and rare wine
uncorked.

As soon as I saw this Coppelius, therefore, the fearful and hideous
thought arose in my mind that he, and he alone, must be the Sand-man;
but I no longer conceived of the Sand-man as the bugbear in the
old nurse's fable, who fetched children's eyes and took them to the
half-moon as food for his little ones--no! but as an ugly spectre-like
fiend bringing trouble and misery and ruin, both temporal and
everlasting, everywhere wherever he appeared.

I was spell-bound on the spot. At the risk of being discovered, and, as
I well enough knew, of being severely punished, I remained as I was,
with my head thrust through the curtains listening. My father received
Coppelius in a ceremonious manner. "Come, to work!" cried the latter,
in a hoarse snarling voice, throwing off his coat. Gloomily and
silently my father took off his dressing-gown, and both put on long
black smock-frocks. Where they took them from I forgot to notice.
Father opened the folding-doors of a cupboard in the wall; but I saw
that what I had so long taken to be a cupboard was really a dark
recess, in which was a little hearth. Coppelius approached it, and a
blue flame crackled upwards from it. Round about were all kinds of
strange utensils. Good God! as my old father bent down over the fire
how different he looked! His gentle and venerable features seemed to be
drawn up by some dreadful convulsive pain into an ugly, repulsive
Satanic mask. He looked like Coppelius. Coppelius plied the red-hot
tongs and drew bright glowing masses out of the thick smoke and began
assiduously to hammer them. I fancied that there were men's faces
visible round about, but without eyes, having ghastly deep black holes
where the eyes should have been. "Eyes here! Eyes here!" cried
Coppelius, in a ho