Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992)
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were gone Nathanael recovered his equanimity again;
and, bending his thoughts upon Clara, he clearly discerned that the gruesome incubus had proceeded only from himself, as also that Coppola was a right honest
mechanician and optician, and far from being Coppe-
lius’s dreaded double and ghost. And then, besides, none
of the glasses which Coppola now placed on the table had
anything at all singular about them, at least nothing so
weird as the spectacles; so, in order to square accounts
with himself, Nathanael now really determined to buy
something of the man. He took up a small, very beautifully cut pocket perspective, and by way of proving it looked through the window. Never before in his life had
he had a glass in his hands that brought out things so
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clearly and sharply and distinctly. Involuntarily he directed the glass upon Spalanzani’s room; Olimpia sat at the little table as usual, her arms laid upon it and her
hands folded. Now he saw for the first time the regular
and exquisite beauty of her features. The eyes, however,
seemed to him to have a singular look of fixity and
lifelessness. But as he continued to look closer and more
carefully through the glass he fancied a light like humid
moonbeams came into them. It seemed as if their power
of vision was now being enkindled; their glances shone
with ever-increasing vivacity. Nathanael remained
standing at the window as if glued to the spot by a
wizard’s spell, his gaze rivetted unchangeably upon the
divinely beautiful Olimpia. A coughing and shuffling of
the feet awakened him out of his enchaining dream, as it
were. Coppola stood behind him, “Tre zechini” (three
ducats). Nathanael had completely forgotten the optician; he hastily paid the sum demanded. “Ain’t ’t? Foine gless? foine gless?” asked Coppola in his harsh, unpleasant voice, smiling sardonically. “Yes, yes, yes,” rejoined Nathanael impatiently; “adieu, my good friend.” But
Coppola did not leave the room without casting many
peculiar side-glances upon Nathanael; and the young
student heard him laughing loudly on the stairs. “Ah
well!” thought he, “he’s laughing at me because I’ve paid
him too much for this little perspective— because I’ve
given him too much money— that’s it.” As he softly
murmured these words he fancied he detected a gasping
sigh as of a dying man stealing awfully through the room;
his heart stopped beating with fear. But to be sure he had
heaved a deep sigh himself; it was quite plain. “Clara is
quite right,” said he to himself, “in holding me to be an
incurable ghost-seer; and yet it’s very ridiculous— ay,
more than ridiculous, that the stupid thought of having
paid Coppola too much for his glass should cause me this
strange anxiety; I can’t see any reason for it.”
Now he sat down to finish his letter to Clara; but a
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glance through the window showed him Olimpia still in
her former posture. Urged by an irresistible impulse he
jumped up and seized Coppola’s perspective; nor could
he tear himself away from the fascinating Olimpia until
his friend and brother Siegmund called for him to go to
Professor Spalanzani’s lecture. The curtains before the
door of the all-important room were closely drawn, so
that he could not see Olimpia. Nor could he even see her
from his own room during the two following days,
notwithstanding that he scarcely ever left his window,
and maintained a scarce interrupted watch through
Coppola’s perspective upon her room. On the third day
curtains even were drawn across the window. Plunged
into the depths of despair,— goaded by longing and
ardent desire, he hurried outside the walls of the town.
Olimpia’s image hovered about his path in the air and
stepped forth out of the bushes, and peeped up at him
with large and lustrous eyes from the bright surface of
the brook. Clara’s image was completely faded from his
mind; he had no thoughts except for Olimpia. He uttered
his love-plaints aloud and in a lachrymose tone, “Oh! my
glorious, noble star of love, have you only risen to vanish
again, and leave me in the darkness and hopelessness of
night?”
Returning home, he became aware that there was a
good deal of noisy bustle going on in Spalanzani’s house.
All the doors stood wide open; men were taking in all
kinds of gear and furniture; the windows of the first floor
were all lifted off their hinges; busy maid-servants with
immense hair-brooms were driving backwards and forwards dusting and sweeping, whilst within could be heard the knocking and hammering of carpenters and
upholsterers. Utterly astonished, Nathanael stood still in
the street; then Siegmund joined him, laughing, and said,
“Well, what do you say to our old Spalanzani?” Nathanael assured him that he could not say anything, since he knew not what it all meant; to his great astonishment, he
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could hear, however, that they were turning the quiet
gloomy house almost inside out with their dusting and
cleaning and making of alterations. Then he learned
from Siegmund that Spalanzani intended giving a great
concert and ball on the following day, and that half the
university was invited. It was generally reported that
Spalanzani was going to let his daughter Olimpia, whom
he had so long so jealously guarded from every eye, make
her first appearance.
Nathanael received an invitation. At the appointed
hour, when the carriages were rolling up and the lights
were gleaming brightly in the decorated halls, he went
across to the Professor’s, his heart beating high with
expectation. The company was both numerous and
brilliant. Olimpia was richly and tastefully dressed. One
could not but admire her figure and the regular beauty of
her features. The striking inward curve of her back, as
well as the wasp-like smallness of her waist, appeared to
be the result of too-tight lacing. There was something
stiff and measured in her gait and bearing that made an
unfavourable impression upon many; it was ascribed to
the constraint imposed upon her by the company. The
concert began. Olimpia played on the piano with great
skill; and sang as skilfully an aria di bravura, in a voice
which was, if anything, almost too sharp, but clear as
glass bells. Nathanael was transported with delight; he
stood in the background farthest from her, and owing to
the blinding lights could not quite distinguish her features. So, without being observed, he took Coppola’s glass out of his pocket, and directed it upon the beautiful
Olimpia. Oh! then he perceived how her yearning eyes
sought him, how every note only reached its full purity in
the loving glance which penetrated to and inflamed his
heart. Her artificial roulades seemed to him to be the
exultant cry towards heaven of the soul refined by love;
and when at l
ast, after the cadenza, the long trill rang
shrilly and loudly through the hall, he felt as if he were
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suddenly grasped by burning arms and could no longer
control himself,— he could not help shouting aloud in
his mingled pain and delight, “Olimpia!” All eyes were
turned upon him; many people laughed. The face of the
cathedral organist wore a still more gloomy look than it
had done before, but all he said was, “Very well!”
The concert came to an end, and the ball began. Oh! to
dance with her— with her—that was now the aim of all
Nathanael's wishes, of all his desires. But how should he
have courage to request her, the queen of the ball, to
grant him the honour of a dance? And yet he couldn’t tell
how it came about, just as the dance began, he found
himself standing close beside her, nobody having as yet
asked her to be his partner; so, with some difficulty
stammering out a few words, he grasped her hand. It was
cold as ice; he shook with an awful, frosty shiver. But,
fixing his eyes upon her face, he saw that her glance was
beaming upon him with love and longing, and at the
same moment he thought that the pulse began to beat in
her cold hand, and the warm life-blood to course through
her veins. And passion burned more intensely in his own
heart also; he threw his arm round her beautiful waist
and whirled her round the hall. He had always thought
that he kept good and accurate time in dancing, but from
the perfectly rhythmical evenness with which Olimpia
danced, and which frequently put him quite out, he
perceived how very faulty his own time really was.
Notwithstanding, he would not dance with any other
lady; and everybody else who approached Olimpia to
call upon her for a dance, he would have liked to kill on
the spot. This, however, only happened twice; to his
astonishment Olimpia remained after this without a
partner, and he failed not on each occasion to take her
out again. If Nathanael had been able to see anything else
except the beautiful Olimpia, there would inevitably
have been a good deal of unpleasant quarrelling and
strife; for it was evident that Olimpia was the object of
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the smothered laughter only with difficulty suppressed,
which was heard in various comers amongst the young
people; and they followed her with very curious looks,
but nobody knew for what reason. Nathanael, excited by
dancing and the plentiful supply of wine he had consumed, had laid aside the shyness which at other times characterised him. He sat beside Olimpia, her hand in
his own, and declared his love enthusiastically and
passionately in words which neither of them understood,
neither he nor Olimpia. And yet she perhaps did, for she
sat with her eyes fixed unchangeably upon his, sighing
repeatedly, “Ach! Ach! Ach!” Upon this Nathanael
would answer, “Oh, you glorious heavenly lady! You ray
from the promised paradise of love! Oh! what a profound soul you have! my whole being is mirrored in it!”
and a good deal more in the same strain. But Olimpia
only continued to sigh “Ach! Ach!” again and again.
Professor Spalanzani passed by the two happy lovers
once or twice, and smiled with a look of peculiar
satisfaction. All at once it seemed to Nathanael, albeit he
was far away in a different, world, as if it were growing
perceptibly darker down below at Professor Spalan-
zani’s. He looked about him, and to his very great alarm
became aware that there were only two lights left burning
in the hall, and they were on the point of going out. The
music and dancing had long ago ceased. “We must
part— part!” he cried, wildly and despairingly; he kissed
Olimpia’s hand; he bent down to her mouth, but ice-cold
lips met his burning ones. As he touched her cold hand,
he felt his heart thrilled with awe; the legend of “The
Dead Bride” shot suddenly through his mind. But
Olimpia had drawn him closer to her, and the kiss
appeared to warm her lips into vitality. Professor Spalanzani strode slowly through the empty apartment, his footsteps giving a hollow echo; and his figure had, as
the flickering shadows played about him, a ghostly,
awful appearance. “Do you love me? Do you love me,
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Olimpia? Only one little word— Do you love me?”
whispered Nathanael, but she only sighed, “Ach! Ach!”
as she rose to her feet. “Yes, you are my lovely, glorious
star of love,” said Nathanael, “and will shine forever,
purifying and ennobling my heart.” “Ach! Ach!” replied
Olimpia, as she moved along. Nathanael followed her,
they stood before the Professor. “You have had an
extraordinarily animated conversation with my daughter,” said he, smiling; “well, well, my dear Mr. Nathanael, if you find pleasure in talking to the stupid girl, 1 am sure I shall be glad for you to come and do so.”
Nathanael took his leave, his heart singing and leaping in
a perfect delirium of happiness.
During the next few days Spalanzani’s ball was the
general topic of conversation. Although the Professor
had done everything to make the thing a splendid
success, yet certain gay spirits related more than one
thing that had occurred which was quite irregular and
out of order. They were especially keen in pulling
Olimpia to pieces for her taciturnity and rigid stiffness;
in spite of her beautiful form they alleged that she was
hopelessly stupid, and in this fact they discerned the
reason why Spalanzani had so long kept her concealed
from publicity. Nathanael heard all this with inward
wrath, but nevertheless he held his tongue; for, thought
he, would it indeed be worth while to prove to these
fellows that it is their own stupidity which prevents them
from appreciating Olimpia’s profound and brilliant
parts? One day Siegmund said to him, “Pray, brother,
have the kindness to tell me how you, a sensible fellow,
came to lose your head over that Miss Wax-face—that
wooden doll across there?” Nathanael was about to fly
into a rage, but he recollected himself and replied, “Tell
me, Siegmund, how came it that Olimpia’s divine
charms could escape your eye, so keenly alive as it always
is to beauty, and your acute perception as well? But
Heaven be thanked for it, otherwise I should have had
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you for a rival, and then the blood of one of us would
have had to be spilled.” Siegmund, perceiving how
matters stood with his friend, skilfully interposed and
said, after remarking that all argument with one in love
about the object of his affections was out of place, “Yet
it’s very strange that several of us have formed pretty
much the same opinion about Olimpia. We think she
is— you won’t take it ill, brother?—that she is singularly
her features, that can’t be gainsaid; and if her eyes were
not so utterly devoid of life, I may say, of the power of
vision, she might pass for a beauty. She is strangely
measured in her movements, they all seem as if they
were dependent upon some wound-up clock-work. Her
playing and singing has the disagreeably perfect, but
insensitive time of a singing machine, and her dancing is
the same. We felt quite afraid of this Olimpia, and did
not like to have anything to do with her; she seemed to us
to be only acting like a living creature, and as if there was
some secret at the bottom of it all.” Nathanael did not
give way to the bitter feelings which threatened to master
him at these words of Siegmund’s; he fought down and
got the better of his displeasure, and merely said, very
earnestly, “You cold prosaic fellows may very well be
afraid of her. It is only to its like that the poetically
organised spirit unfolds itself. Upon me alone did her
loving glances fall, and through my mind and thoughts
alone did they radiate; and only in her love can I find my
own self again. Perhaps, however, she doesn’t do quite
right not to jabber a lot of nonsense and stupid talk like
other shallow people. It is true, she speaks but few words;
but the few words she does speak are genuine hieroglyphs of the inner world of Love and of the higher cognition of the intellectual life revealed in the intuition
of the Eternal beyond the grave. But you have no
understanding for all these things, and I am only wasting
words.” “God be with you, brother,” said Siegmund
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very gently, almost sadly, “but it seems to me that you
are in a very bad way. You may rely upon me, if all— No,
I can’t say any more.” It all at once dawned upon
Nathanael that his cold prosaic friend Siegmund really
and sincerely wished him well, and so he warmly shook
his proffered hand.
Nathanael had completely forgotten that there was a
Clara in the world, whom he had once loved— and his
mother and Lothair. They had all vanished from his
mind; he lived for Olimpia alone. He sat beside her every
day for hours together, rhapsodising about his love and