rid weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola
followed me everywhere; and I am almost ashamed to confess it, but he
was able to disturb my sound and in general calm sleep with all sorts
of wonderful dream-shapes. But soon--the next day--I saw everything in
a different light. Oh! do not be angry with me, my best-beloved, if,
despite your strange presentiment that Coppelius will do you some
mischief, Lothair tells you I am in quite as good spirits, and just the
same as ever.

I will frankly confess, it seems to me that all that was fearsome and
terrible of which you speak, existed only in your own self, and that
the real true outer world had but little to do with it. I can quite
admit that old Coppelius may have been highly obnoxious to you
children, but your real detestation of him arose from the fact that he
hated children.

Naturally enough the gruesome Sand-man of the old nurse's story was
associated in your childish mind with old Coppelius, who, even though
you had not believed in the Sand-man, would have been to you a ghostly
bugbear, especially dangerous to children. His mysterious labours along
with your father at night-time were, I daresay, nothing more than
secret experiments in alchemy, with which your mother could not be over
well pleased, owing to the large sums of money that most likely were
thrown away upon them; and besides, your father, his mind full of the
deceptive striving after higher knowledge, may probably have become
rather indifferent to his family, as so often happens in the case of
such experimentalists. So also it is equally probable that your father
brought about his death by his own imprudence, and that Coppelius is
not to blame for it. I must tell you that yesterday I asked our
experienced neighbour, the chemist, whether in experiments of this kind
an explosion could take place which would have a momentarily fatal
effect. He said, "Oh, certainly!" and described to me in his prolix and
circumstantial way how it could be occasioned, mentioning at the same
time so many strange and funny words that I could not remember them at
all. Now I know you will be angry at your Clara, and will say, "Of the
Mysterious which often clasps man in its invisible arms there's not a
ray can find its way into this cold heart. She sees only the varied
surface of the things of the world, and, like the little child, is
pleased with the golden glittering fruit; at the kernel of which lies
the fatal poison."

Oh! my be