Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992)

by David G. Hartwell (Ed. )

  to broach a subject at once which I would rather have

  postponed until the idea had taken possession of you by

  degrees— ”

  “ I know what it is you want to say, sir,” she broke in,

  “and I’ve reproached myself that I haven’t warned you

  before, but I didn’t like to be the one to speak first. You

  want Blanche— of course, I couldn’t help seeing that; but

  I can’t let her go, sir, indeed, I can’t.”

  “Yes,” he said, firmly, “I want to adopt Blanche, and I

  hardly think you .can refuse, for you must know how

  greatly it will be to her advantage. She is a wonderful

  child; you have never been blind to that; she should have

  every opportunity, not only of money, but of association. If I adopt her legally, I shall, of course, make her my heir, and— there is no reason why she should not grow

  up as great a lady as any in England.”

  The poor woman turned white, and burst into tears.

  “ I’ve sat up nights and nights, struggling,” she said,

  when she could speak. “That, and missing her. I couldn’t

  stand in her light, and I let her stay. I know I oughtn’t to,

  now— I mean, stand in her light— but, sir, she is dearer

  than all the others put together.”

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  “Then live here in England— at least, for some years

  longer. I will gladly relieve your children of your support,

  and you can see Blanche as often as you choose.’’

  “ I can’t do that, sir. After all, she is only one, and there

  are six others. I can’t desert them. They all need me, if

  only to keep them together— three girls unmarried and

  out in the world, and three boys just a little inclined to be

  wild. There is another point, sir— I don’t exactly know

  how to say it.”

  “Well?” asked Orth, kindly. This American woman

  thought him the ideal gentleman, although the mistress

  of the estate on which she visited called him a boor and a

  snob.

  “ It is— well— you must know— you can imagine—

  that her brothers and sisters just worship Blanche. They

  save their dimes to buy her everything she wants— or

  used to want. Heaven knows what will satisfy her now,

  although I can’t see that she’s one bit spoiled. But she’s

  just like a religion to them; they’re not much on church.

  I’ll tell you, sir, what I couldn’t say to anyone else, not

  even to these relations who’ve been so kind to me— but

  there’s wildness, just a streak, in all my children, and I

  believe, I know, it’s Blanche that keeps them straight. My

  girls get bitter, sometimes; work all the week and little

  fun, not caring for common men and no chance to marry

  gentlemen; and sometimes they break out and talk

  dreadful; then, when they’re over it, they say they’ll live

  for Blanche— they’ve said it over and over, and they

  mean it. Every sacrifice they’ve made for her— and

  they’ve made many— has done them good. It isn’t that

  Blanche ever says a word of the preachy sort, or has

  anything of the Sunday-school child about her, or even

  tries to smooth them down when they’re excited. It’s just

  herself. The only thing she ever does is sometimes to

  draw herself up and look scornful, and that nearly kills

  them. Little as she is, they’re crazy about having her

  respect. I’ve grown superstitious about her. Until she

  came I used to get frightened, terribly, sometimes, and I

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  believe she came for that. So—you see! I know Blanche

  is too fine for us and ought to have the best; but, then,

  they are to be considered, too. They have their rights,

  and they’ve got much more good than bad in them. I

  don’t know! I don’t know! It’s kept me awake many

  nights.”

  Orth rose abruptly. “Perhaps you will take some

  further time to think it over,” he said. “You can stay a

  few weeks longer— the matter cannot be so pressing as

  that.”

  The woman rose. “I’ve thought this,” she said; “let

  Blanche decide. I believe she knows more than any of us.

  I believe that whichever way she decided would be right.

  I won’t say anything to her, so you won’t think I’m

  working on her feelings; and I can trust you. But she’ll

  know.”

  “Why do you think that?” asked Orth, sharply. “There

  is nothing uncanny about the child. She is not yet seven

  years old. Why should you place such a responsibility

  upon her?”

  “Do you think she’s like other children?”

  “ I know nothing of other children.”

  “I do, sir. I’ve raised six. And I’ve seen hundreds of

  others. I never was one to be a fool about my own, but

  Blanche isn’t like any other child living— I’m certain of

  it.”

  “What do you think?”

  And the woman answered, according to her lights: “ I

  think she’s an angel, and came to us because we needed

  her.”

  “And I think she is Blanche Mortlake working out the

  last of her salvation,” thought the author; but he made

  no reply, and was alone in a moment.

  It was several days before he spoke to Blanche, and

  then, one morning, when she was sitting on her mat on

  the lawn with the light full upon her, he told her abruptly

  that her mother must return home.

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  127

  To his surprise, but unutterable delight, she burst into

  tears and flung herself into his arms.

  “You need not leave me,” he said, when he could find

  his own voice. “You can stay here always and be my little

  girl. It all rests with you.”

  “ I can’t stay,” she sobbed. “I can’t!”

  “And that is what made you so sad once or twice?” he

  asked, with a double eagerness.

  She made no reply.

  “Oh!” he said, passionately, “give me your confidence,

  Blanche. You are the only breathing thing that I love.”

  “If I could I would,” she said. “But I don’t know— not

  quite.”

  “How much do you know?”

  But she sobbed again and would not answer. He dared

  not risk too much. After all, the physical barrier between

  the past and the present was very young.

  “Well, well, then, we will talk about the other matter. I

  will not pretend to disguise the fact that your mother is

  distressed at the idea of parting from you, and thinks it

  would be as sad for your brothers and sisters, whom she

  says you influence for their good. Do you think that you

  do?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Do you know why you know everything?”

  “No, my dear, and I have great respect for your

  instincts. But your sisters and brothers are now old

  enough to take care of themselves. They must be of poor

  stuff if they cannot live properly without the aid of a

  child. Moreover, they will
be marrying soon. That will

  also mean that your mother will have many little grandchildren to console her for your loss. I will be the one bereft, if you leave me. I am the only one who really

  needs you. I don’t say I will go to the bad, as you may

  have very foolishly persuaded yourself your family will

  do without you, but I trust to your instincts to make you

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  realize how unhappy, how inconsolable I shall be. I shall

  be the loneliest man on earth!”

  She rubbed her face deeper into his flannels, and

  tightened her embrace. “Can’t you come, too?” she

  asked.

  “No; you must live with me wholly or not at all. Your

  people are not my people, their ways are not my ways.

  We should not get along. And if you lived with me over

  there you might as well stay here, for your influence over

  them would be quite as removed. Moreover, if they are

  of the right stuff, the memory of you will be quite as

  potent for good as your actual presence.”

  “Not unless I died.”

  Again something within him trembled. “Do you believe you are going to die young?” he blurted out.

  But she would not answer.

  He entered the nursery abruptly the next day and

  found her packing her dolls. When she saw him, she sat

  down and began to weep hopelessly. He knew then that

  his fate was sealed. And when, a year later, he received

  her last little scrawl, he was almost glad that she went

  when she did.

  E.T.A. Hoffman (1776-1822)

  The Sand-man

  Ernst Theodor W ihelm Hoffm an, who in 1808 changed one

  o f his middle names from W ilhelm to Am adeus in honor of

  M ozart, is the only candidate to rival Poe (who was

  influenced by him) as the creator o f the modern supernatural tale. His stories are a large part o f the founding texts of the "fantastic" in European literature. His reputation rivalled those of Lord Byron and S ir W alter Slcott in the Europe of his day. He is the greatest fantasy w riter of

  the nineteenth century; his most famous stories include

  "The Golden Pot,” which Everett B leiler calls the greatest

  fantasy story o f the nineteenth century, “ N utcracker and

  the King of the M ic e ,” the source o f Tchaikovsky’s The

  Nutcracker, “ Mademoiselle D e Scuddry," arguably

  the first detective story. His great innovation was to bring

  the fantastic into the everyday present (fairy and folk tales

  had traditionally been set long ago and far aw ay), a

  foundation of all horror literature since. His novella, "The

  Sand-m an," a nightmarish piece that fascinated Sigmund

  Freud so much that he used it as the basic text o f his essay,

  "The Uncanny," was w ritten in 1816. As John Sladek

  pointed out in Horror. The 100 Best Books. "This dark tale

  was w ritten tw o years before M ary Shelley's Frankenstein,

  in a similar spirit o f horrified fascination with science and its

  application to artificial life. Hoffm an is concerned with the

  horror of autom ata indistinguishable from real people."

  This them e has grown and reverberated through literature

  since, and is particulary common in science fiction. It is

  interesting to com pare “The Sand-m an” to G eorge R.R.

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  E.T.A. Hoffman

  M artin 's "Sandkings.” Philip K. D ick's “ Faith o f O ur

  Fathers,” and John W . C am pbell’s "W ho Goes There?”

  N ath an ael to L o th air

  I know you are all very uneasy because I have not

  written for such a long, long time. Mother, to be sure,

  is angry, and Clara, I dare say, believes I am living here

  in riot and revelry, and quite forgetting my sweet angel,

  whose image is so deeply engraved upon my heart and

  mind. But that is not so; daily and hourly do I think of

  you all, and my lovely Clara's form comes to gladden me

  in my dreams, and smiles upon me with her bright eyes,

  as graciously as she used to do in the days when I went in

  and out amongst you. Oh! how could I write to you in the

  distracted state of mind in which I have been, and which,

  until now, has quite bewildered me! A terrible thing has

  happened to me. Dark forebodings of some awful fate

  threatening me are spreading themselves out over my

  head like black clouds, impenetrable to every friendly

  ray of sunlight. I must now tell you what has taken place;

  I must, that I see well enough, but only to think upon it

  makes the wild laughter burst from my lips. Oh! my dear,

  dear Lothair, what shall I say to make you feel, if only in

  an inadequate way, that that which happened to me a

  few days ago could thus really exercise such a hostile and

  disturbing influence upon my life? Oh that you were here

  to see for yourself! but now you will, I suppose, take me

  for a superstitious ghost-seer. In a word, the terrible

  thing which I have experienced, the fatal effect of which I

  in vain exert every effort to shake off, is simply that some

  days ago, namely, on the 30th October, at twelve o’clock

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  at noon, a dealer in weather-glasses came into my room

  and wanted to sell me one of his wares. I bought nothing,

  and threatened to kick him downstairs, whereupon he

  went away of his own accord.

  You will conclude that it can only be very peculiar

  relations— relations intimately intertwined with my life

  — that can give significance to this event, and that it

  must be the person of this unfortunate hawker which has

  had such a very inimical effect upon me. And so it really

  is. I will summon up all my faculties in order to narrate

  to you calmly and patiently as much of the early days of

  my youth as will suffice to put matters before you in such

  a way that your keen sharp intellect may grasp everything clearly and distinctly, in bright and living pictures.

  Just as I am beginning, I hear you laugh and Clara say,

  “What’s all this childish nonsense about!” Well, laugh at

  me, laugh heartily at me, pray do. But, good God! my

  hair is standing on end, and I seem to be entreating you

  to laugh at me in the same sort of frantic despair in

  which Franz Moor entreated Daniel to laugh him to

  scorn. But to my story.

  Except at dinner we, i.e., I and my brothers and sisters,

  saw but little of our father all day long. His business no

  doubt took up most of his time. After our evening meal,

  which, in accordance with an old custom, was served at

  seven o’clock, we all went, mother with us, into father’s

  room, and took our places around a round table. My

  father smoked his pipe, drinking a large glass of beer to

  it. Often he told us many wonderful stories, and got so

  excited over them that his pipe always went out; I

  used then to light it for him with a spill, and this formed

  my chief amusement. Often, again, he would give us

  picture-books to look at, whilst he sat silent and motionless in his easy-chair, puffing out such dense clouds of smoke that we were all as it were enveloped in

  mist.
On such evenings mother was very sad; and

  directly it struck nine she said, “Come, children! off to

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  bed! Come! The ‘Sand-man’ is come I see.” And I always

  did seem to hear something trampling upstairs with slow

  heavy steps; that must be the Sand-man. Once in particular I was very much frightened at this dull trampling and knocking; as mother was leading us out of the room I

  asked her, “O mamma! but who is this nasty Sand-man

  who always sends us away from papa? What does he look

  like?” “There is no Sand-man, my dear child,” mother

  answered; “when I say the Sand-man is come, I only

  mean that you are sleepy and can’t keep your eyes open,

  as if somebody had put sand in them.” This answer of

  mother’s did not satisfy me; nay, in my childish mind the

  thought clearly unfolded itself that mother denied there

  was a Sand-man only to prevent us being afraid,— why, I

  always heard him come upstairs. Full of curiosity to

  learn something more about this Sand-man and what he

  had to do with us children, I at length asked the old

  woman who acted as my youngest sister’s attendant,

  what sort of a man he was— the Sand-man? “Why,

  ’thanael, darling, don’t you know?” she replied. “Oh!

  he’s a wicked man, who comes to little children when

  they won’t go to bed and throws handfuls of sand in their

  eyes, so that they jump out of their heads all bloody; and

  he puts them into a bag and takes them to the half-moon

  as food for his little ones; and they sit there in the nest

  and have hooked beaks like owls, and they pick naughty

  little boys’ and girls’ eyes out with them.” After this I

  formed in my own mind a horrible picture of the cruel

  Sand-man. When anything came blundering upstairs at

  night I trembled with fear and dismay; and all that my

  mother could get out of me were the stammered words

  “The Sand-man! the Sand-man!” whilst the tears

  coursed down my cheeks. Then I ran into my bedroom,

  and the whole night through tormented myself with the

  terrible apparition of the Sand-man. I was quite old

  enough to perceive that the old woman’s tale about the

  Sand-man and his little ones’ nest in the half-moon

  The Sand-man

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