The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I.

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

"I don't know," the baron began, "where Tutor Ink can be staying out so long with the children. At first there was no getting him to go out at all to the wood, and now there's no getting him back from it. He's really a very extraordinary fellow, this Tutor Ink, taking him all in all. I sometimes almost wish he had never entered our doors. To begin with, his pricking the children with that needle was a thing that I cannot say I liked; and I don't think his knowledge of the sciences amounts to very much, either. He plappers out a lot of stuff that nobody run make head or tail of, and can tell you what kind of spatterdashes the Grand Mogul puts on; but when he goes outside, he can't tell a lime-tree from a chestnut; and his behaviour has always struck me as being most remarkable."

"I feel just as you do, dearest husband," said Frau von Brakel; "and, glad as I was that your great cousin should interest himself about the children, I feel quite sure, now, that he might have done it in other and better ways than by saddling us with this Tutor Ink. As regards his knowledge of the sciences, I don't pretend to give an opinion; but I know that the little black creature, with his little weeny legs, is more and more disagreeable to me every day. He has such a nasty way of gobbling things. He can't see a drop of beer at the bottom of a glass, or the fag-end of a jug of milk, but he must gulp them down his throat; and if he finds the sugar-box open, he's at it in a moment, snuffing at the sugar, and dipping his fingers in it, till one has to clap to the lid in his face; and then away he darts, humming and buzzing in a way that's most disgusting and abominable."

The baron was going to carry this conversation further, when Felix and Christlieb came running home through amongst the birches.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" Felix kept shouting, "the pheasant prince has bitten Master Tutor Ink to death!"

"Oh, mamma dear," cried Christlieb, "Master Tutor Ink is not a Tutor Ink at all! What he really is, is Pepser, king of the Gnomes; a great, monstrous fly, but a fly with a wig on, and shoes and stockings!"

The parents gazed at the children in utter amazement, as they went on excitedly telling them all about the Stranger Child, whose mother was a great fairy queen; and of the Gnome King Pepser, and his combat with the pheasant prince.

"Who on earth has been cramming all this nonsense into your heads?" the baron asked over and over again. "Have you been dreaming? or what in the name of goodness has happened to you?" However, the children declared, and stuck to it, that everything had happened just as they told it, and that the horrible Pepser, who had given himself out as being Master Ink, the tutor, must be lying killed in the wood.

Frau von Brakel struck her hands over her head and cried, in much sorrow, "Oh, children, children, I don't know what on earth is to become of you, when fearful things of this sort come into your heads, and you won't let yourselves be persuaded to the contrary!"

But the baron grew very grave and thoughtful. "Felix," he said, "you are really a very sensible boy now; and I must admit that Tutor Ink has always, from the very first, struck me as being a very strange, mysterious creature. Indeed, it often seemed to me that there was something very queer about him, which I could by no means get to the bottom of; he is not like the common run of tutors at all. Your mother and I are by no means satisfied with him, particularly your mother. He has such a terribly liquorish tooth of his own, there's no keeping him away from sweet things! And then he hums and buzzes in such a distressing way! Altogether, I can assure you he wouldn't have been here much longer. No! But now, my dear boy, just bethink yourself calmly; even if there were, really, any such nasty things as gnomes existing in the world, could (I ask you now to think it over calmly and rationally), could, I say, a tutor really be a fly?"

Felix looked his father steadily in the face with his clear blue eyes, as he repeated this question. "Well," said Felix, "I never thought very much about that; in fact, I should not have believed it myself, if the Stranger Child had not said so, and if I had not seen, with my own eyes, that he is a horrible, nasty fly, and only pretends to be Tutor Ink. And then," continued Felix, while the baron shook his head in silence, like one who does not know quite what to say, or think, "see what mother says about his fondness for sweet things. Isn't that just like a fly? Flies are always grabbing at sweet things. And then, his hummings and buzzings!"