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“You have had a very animated conversation with my daughter,” said he, smiling; “so, dear Herr Nathaniel, if you have any taste for talking with a silly girl, your visits shall be welcome.”

Nathaniel departed, with a whole heaven beaming in his bosom. The next day Spalanzani’s festival was the subject of conversation. Notwithstanding the professor had done every thing to appear splendid, the wags had all sorts of incongruities and oddities to talk about, and were particularly hard upon the dumb, stiff Olympia, to whom, in spite of her beautiful exterior, they ascribed absolute stupidity, and were pleased to find therein the cause why Spalanzani kept her so long concealed. Nathaniel did not hear this without increased rage; but, nevertheless, he held his peace, for, thought he, “Is it worth while to convince these fellows that it is their own stupidity that prevents them from recognising Olympia’s deep, noble mind?”

One day Sigismund said to him: “Be kind enough, brother, to tell me how it was possible for a sensible fellow like you to fall in love with that wax face, that wooden doll up there?”

Nathaniel was about to fly out in a passion, but he quickly recollected himself, and retorted: “Tell me, Sigismund, how it is that Olympia’s heavenly charms could escape your glance, which generally perceives every thing so clearly–your active senses? But, for that very reason, Heaven be thanked, I have not you for my rival; otherwise, one of us must have fallen a bleeding corpse!”

Sigismund plainly perceived his friend’s condition, so he skilfully gave the conversation a turn, and added, after observing that in love-affairs there was no disputing about the object: “Nevertheless it is strange, that many of us think much the same about Olympia. To us–pray do not take it ill, brother,–she appears singularly stiff and soulless. Her shape is symmetrical–so is her face–that is true! She might pass for beautiful, if her glance were not so utterly without a ray of life–without the power of seeing. Her pace is strangely measured, every movement seems to depend on some wound-up clockwork. Her playing–her singing has the unpleasantly correct and spiritless measure of a singing machine, and the same may be said of her dancing. To us, this Olympia has been quite unpleasant; we wished to have nothing to do with her; it seems as if she acts like a living being, and yet has some strange peculiarity of her own.” Nathaniel did not completely yield to the bitter feeling, which was coming over him at these words of Sigismund; he mastered his indignation, and merely said, with great earnestness, “Well may Olympia appear awful to you, cold prosaic man. Only to the poetical mind does the similarly organised develop itself. To me alone was her glance of love revealed, beaming through mind and thought; only in the love of Olympia do I find myself again. It may not suit you, that she does not indulge in idle chit-chat like other shallow minds. She utters few words, it is true, but these few words appear as genuine hieroglyphics of the inner world, full of love and deep knowledge of the spiritual life in contemplation of the eternal yonder. But you have no sense for all this, and my words are wasted on you.” “God preserve you, brother,” said Sigismund very mildly, almost sorrowfully; “but it seems to me, that you are in an evil way. You may depend upon me, if all–no, no, I will not say any thing further.” All of a sudden it seemed to Nathaniel as if the cold prosaic Sigismund meant very well towards him, and, therefore, he shook the proffered hand very heartily.

Nathaniel had totally forgotten, that there was in the world a Clara, whom he had once loved;–his mother–Lothaire–all had vanished from his memory; he lived only for Olympia, with whom he sat for hours every day, uttering strange fantastical stuff about his love, about the sympathy that glowed to life, about the affinity of souls, to all of which Olympia listened with great devotion. From the very bottom of his desk, he drew out all that he had ever written. Poems, fantasies, visions, romances, tales–this stock was daily increased with all sorts of extravagant sonnets, stanzas, and canzone, and he read all to Olympia for hours in succession without fatigue. Never had he known such an admirable listener. She neither embroidered nor knitted, she never looked out of window, she fed no favourite bird, she played neither with lap-dog nor pet cat, she did not twist a slip of paper nor any thing else in her hand, she was not obliged to suppress a yawn by a gentle forced cough. In short, she sat for hours, looking straight into her lover’s eyes, without stirring, and her glance became more and more lively and animated. Only when Nathaniel rose at last, and kissed her hand and also her lips, she said “Ah, ah!” adding “good night, dearest!” “Oh deep, noble mind!” cried Nathaniel in his own room, “by thee, by thee, dear one, am I fully comprehended.” He trembled with inward transport, when he considered the wonderful accordance that was revealed more and more every day in his own mind, and that of Olympia, for it seemed to him as if Olympia had spoken concerning him and his poetical talent out of the depths of his own mind;–as if the voice had actually sounded from within himself. That must indeed have been the case, for Olympia never uttered any words whatever beyond those which have been already mentioned. Even when Nathaniel, in clear and sober moments, as for instance, when he had just woke in the morning, remembered Olympia’s utter passivity, and her paucity and scarcity of words, he said: “Words, words! The glance of her heavenly eye speaks more than any language here below. Can a child of heaven adapt herself to the narrow circle which a miserable earthly necessity has drawn?” Professor Spalanzani appeared highly delighted at the intimacy of his daughter with Nathaniel. To the latter he gave the most unequivocal signs of approbation, and when Nathaniel ventured at last to hint at an union with Olympia, he smiled with his white face, and thought “he would leave his daughter a free choice in the matter.” Encouraged by these words, and with burning passion in his heart, Nathaniel resolved to implore Olympia on the very next day, that she would say directly, in plain words, that which her kind glance had told him long ago; namely, that she loved him. He sought the ring which his mother had given him at parting, that he might give it to Olympia as a symbol of his devotion, of his life which budded forth and bloomed with her alone. Clara’s letters and Lothaire’s came into his hands during the search; but he flung them aside indifferently, found the ring, put it up and hastened over to Olympia. Already on the steps, in the hall he heard a strange noise, which seemed to proceed from Spalanzani’s room. There was a stamping, a clattering, a pushing, a hurling against the door, intermingled with curses and imprecations. “Let go, let go, rascal!–scoundrel! Body and soul ventured in it? Ha, ha, ha! that I never will consent to–I, I made the eyes, I the clockwork–stupid blockhead with your clockwork–accursed dog of a bungling watch-maker–off with you–Satan–stop, pipe-maker–infernal beast–hold–begone–let go!” These words were uttered by the voices of Spalanzani, and the hideous Coppelius, who was thus raging and clamoring. Nathaniel rushed in, overcome by the most inexpressible anguish. The professor held a female figure fast by the shoulders, the Italian Coppola grasped it by the feet, and thus they were tugging and pulling, this way and that, contending for the possession of it, with the utmost fury. Nathaniel started back with horror, when in the figure he recognised Olympia. Boiling with the wildest indignation, he was about to rescue his beloved from these infuriated men, but at that moment, Coppola, turning himself with the force of a giant, wrenched the figure from the professor’s hand, and then with the figure itself gave him a tremendous blow, which made him reel and fall backwards over the table, where vials, retort
s, bottles, and glass cylinders were standing. All these were dashed to a thousand shivers. Now Coppola flung the figure across his shoulders, and, with frightful, yelling laughter, dashed down the stairs, so that the feet of the figure, which dangled in the ugliest manner, rattled with a wooden sound on every step. Nathaniel stood paralysed; he had seen but too plainly that Olympia’s waxen, deadly pale countenance had no eyes, but black holes instead–she was, indeed, a lifeless doll. Spalanzani was writhing on the floor; the pieces of glass had cut his head, heart, and arms, and the blood was spirting up, as from so many fountains. But he soon collected all his strength. “After him–after him–why do you pause? Coppelius, Coppelius, has robbed me of my best automaton–a work of twenty years–body and soul set upon it–the clock-work–the speech–the walk, mine; the eyes stolen from you. The infernal rascal–after him; fetch Olympia–there you have the eyes!”