llow sepulchral voice. My blood ran cold with horror;
I screamed and tumbled out of my hiding-place into the floor. Coppelius
immediately seized upon me. "You little brute! You little brute!" he
bleated, grinding his teeth. Then, snatching me up, he threw me on
the hearth, so that the flames began to singe my hair. "Now we've got
eyes--eyes--a beautiful pair of children's eyes," he whispered, and,
thrusting his hands into the flames he took out some red-hot grains and
was about to strew them into my eyes. Then my father clasped his hands
and entreated him, saying, "Master, master, let my Nathanael keep his
eyes--oh! do let him keep them." Coppelius laughed shrilly and replied,
"Well then, the boy may keep his eyes and whine and pule his way
through the world; but we will now at any rate observe the mechanism of
the hand and the foot." And therewith he roughly laid hold upon me, so
that my joints cracked, and twisted my hands and my feet, pulling them
now this way, and now that, "That's not quite right altogether! It's
better as it was!--the old fellow knew what he was about." Thus lisped
and hissed Coppelius; but all around me grew black and dark; a sudden
convulsive pain shot through all my nerves and bones; I knew nothing
more.

I felt a soft warm breath fanning my cheek; I awakened as if out of the
sleep of death; my mother was bending over me. "Is the Sand-man still
there?" I stammered. "No, my dear child; he's been gone a long, long
time; he'll not hurt you." Thus spoke my mother, as she kissed her
recovered darling and pressed him to her heart. But why should I tire
you, my dear Lothair? why do I dwell at such length on these details,
when there's so much remains to be said? Enough--I was detected in my
eavesdropping, and roughly handled by Coppelius. Fear and terror had
brought on a violent fever, of which I lay ill several weeks. "Is the
Sand-man still there?" these were the first words I uttered on coming
to myself again, the first sign of my recovery, of my safety. Thus, you
see, I have only to relate to you the most terrible moment of my youth
for you to thoroughly understand that it must not be ascribed to the
weakness of my eyesight if all that I see is colourless, but to the
fact that a mysterious destiny has hung a dark veil of clouds about my
life, which I shall perhaps only break through when I die.

Coppelius did not show himself again; it was reported he had left the
town.

It was about a year late