[E]ven in gay, easygoing, and carefree minds there may exist a presentiment of dark powers within ourselves which are bent upon our own destruction. - E. T. A. Hoffmann

I wished I could read in their shrivelled faces and watery eyes, I wished I could hear in the bad French which came half through their pinched lips and half through their pointed noses, how the old ladies had got at least on to good terms with the uncanny beings which haunted the castle.

Let me ask you outright, gentle reader, if there have not been hours, indeed whole days and weeks of your life, during which all your usual activities were painfully repugnant, and everything you believed in and valued seemed foolish and worthless?

"However, their father said, "I handed the Nutcracker over to Marie's particular care, and since I see that he needs it just now, she can do as she likes with him, and no one else is to interfere. What's more, I am really surprised that Fritz would expect a soldier wounded in battle to go straight back on active service. As a good military man, he ought to know that you don't draw the wounded up on parade!