The travelers were ecstatic, and the cousin was the happiest man under the sun when Drosselmeier assured him that his fortune was made. Aside from a considerable pension, he would receive for free all gold for gilding. Both the adept and the astronomer had already put on their nightcaps and were about to hop into bed when the astronomer began: “My dear colleague, all good things come in pairs. We have found not only the Krakatuk Nut, but also the young man who bites her open and hands the beauty of the kernel to the princess. I mean nobody other than your own cousin’s son. No! I don’t want to sleep, I want to cast the boy’s horoscope tonight!” Next the astronomer tore the nightcap off the boy’s head and he began to observe the stars.
The boy was actually nice and well built, and he had never shaved and he had never worn boots. Granted, in his early youth, he had been a jumping jack for about two weeks; but now there wasn’t even the slightest inkling of that time, for he had been educated through his father’s efforts. During the Yule season, he wore a lovely, gold-trimmed red coat and a sword. He kept his hat under his arm and he sported an excellent hairstyle and a bagwig. Now he stood, glowing, in his father’s chamber, and, out of native gallantry, he cracked the nuts for the young girls, which is why they had nicknamed him Dear Little Nutcracker.
The next morning, the ecstatic astronomer threw his arms around the adept and shouted: “He’s the one! We’ve got him, we’ve found him! But there are two things, dearest colleague, that we mustn’t ignore. First of all, you have to braid your wonderful nephew a robust, wooden queue, which is linked so closely to the lower jaw that the latter can be strongly pulled. Now when we arrive at the residence, we must cautiously hide the fact that we have brought along the young man who bites open the Krakatuk Nut. Quite the contrary! He has to turn up a great deal later than we.
“According to the horoscope, several men have gnashed up a few teeth unsuccessfully, and so the king has promised that the suitor who chews up the nut and restores Pirlipat’s beauty will be rewarded with the hand of the princess and with the right of succession to the throne.”
The doll maker cousin was quite satisfied that his boy should marry Princess Pirlipat and become prince and king, so he left him fully to the envoy. The queue that Drosselmeier braided for his young, hopeful nephew was so admirable that he put on the most brilliant experiments by chewing up the hardest peach pits.
Drosselmeier and the astronomer promptly informed the authorities of their discovery of the Krakatuk Nut, whereby the necessary arrangements were made on the spot. And when the travelers arrived with the cosmetic preparation, many attractive people, including even a few princes, had already appeared. Relying on their healthy teeth, they wanted to break the spell cast on the princess.
The envoys were horrified when they saw the princess. The tiny body with its teensy hands and feet could barely carry the shapeless head. The ugliness of the face was increased by a white cotton beard around the mouth and the chin.
Now everything occurred just as the court astronomer had read in the horoscope. Clad in shoes, one young shaver after another bit himself sore on the Krakatuk’s teeth and jowls without helping the princess in the least. Dentists had been summoned, and when an unfortunate suitor was being carried away half unconscious, he would sigh: “That was a hard nut to crack!”
Now when the king, in the terror of his heart, promised his daughter and his kingdom to the suitor who would cast off the magic spell, the gentle cousin stepped forward and asked permission to start the process. Nobody but the young Drosselmeier appealed so intently to Princess Pirlipat. She placed her tiny hands on her heart and sighed quite tenderly: “Ah! If only he’ll be the one who bites open the Krakatuk Nut and becomes my husband!”
After young Drosselmeier very politely bowed to the king and the queen and also Princess Pirlipat, he received the Krakatuk Nut from the hands of the supreme master of ceremonies. Taking the nut between his teeth, the boy tugged at his queue and—crack, crack, crack—the shell crumbled into many bits and pieces. Adroitly the boy cleaned the threads still dangling from the kernel and handed it over to the princess, while bowing and scraping, whereupon he closed his eyes and began stepping backward. The princess then swallowed the kernel and—oh wonder!—the freak vanished and instead there stood a woman of angelic beauty. Her face was virtually woven out of silk flakes that were lily-white and rosy red. Her eyes were like glowing azure, her full locks curling as if twisting like golden threads. Drums and trumpets joined the loud jubilation of the people. The king with his entire court danced on one leg as they had done at Pirlipat’s birth; and the queen had to be revived with eau de cologne because she had fainted in bliss and pleasure.
Young Drosselmeier hadn’t even completed his seven steps when the tumult disrupted his self-composure; but he held out for self-control. He was just sticking out his right foot for his seventh pace, when Frau Mouserink, hideously squeaking and squealing, rose out of the floor. As a result, Drosselmeier, about to set down his own foot, stepped so hard on Frau Mouserink’s foot that he stumbled and almost lurched over.
“Oh, misfortune!”
In the blink of an eye, the boy became as misshapen as the princess had been. His body was shrunken, and it could barely carry the thick, malformed head with its huge, bulging eyes and its broad, dreadfully yawning maw. Instead of the queue, a narrow, wooden cape hung down his back, thereby controlling the lower jaw.
The clockmaker and the astronomer were beside themselves with dismay and horror. But then they saw Frau Mouserink bleeding and rolling on the floor. Her evil did not go unavenged, for young Drosselmeier had struck her throat so roughly with the sharp heel of his shoe that she was doomed to expire, and in peril of death, she squeaked and squealed lamentably:
“Oh, Krakatuk, hard nut, see, the death of me. Hee hee, pee pee! Fine little Nutcracker, soon you too will be dead for all to see. Seven crowns for seven heads, Mother will pronounce you dead, Nutcracker fine will be all mine. Oh, life so fresh and red, I leave you dead! Squeal!” With that shriek, Frau Mouserink gave up the ghost, and her corpse was carried off by the royal oven heater.
Nobody had paid any heed to young Drosselmeier, but now the princess reminded the king of his promise. And so he immediately sent for the young hero. But when the unhappy boy stepped forward in his deformity, the princess held both hands over her face and yelled, “Away, away with the wretched Nutcracker!” The Lord Chamberlain grabbed the boy’s little shoulders and threw him out the door.
The king was furious that they had tried to force a Nutcracker on him as his son-in-law. He blamed everything on the misfortune of the clockmaker and the astronomer and he barred them from ever stepping foot inside the residence again.
None of this was mentioned in the horoscope that the astronomer had cast in Nuremberg. But it didn’t prevent him from observing the heavens once more. And indeed he read a number of things in the stars. He found that young Drosselmeier would do so well in his new position that he would become prince and king despite his malformation. However, his deformity would vanish only when Frau Mouserink’s son—whom she had borne after the deaths of her seven sons with seven heads—had become Mouse King. That son would have to be felled by his own hand, and a lady would have to fall in love with him despite his defects.
Indeed, around Christmas, young Drosselmeier had supposedly been spotted in his father’s chamber in Nuremberg—granted, as Nutcracker, yet definitely as prince!
“That, children, is the tale of the hard nut. And now you know why people are apt to say: ‘That was a hard nut to crack.’ And now you know why Nutcrackers are so hideous.” And that was how Drosselmeier concluded his story.
Marie felt that Princess Pirlipat was really a loathsome and ungrateful thing.
Fritz, on the contrary, assured her that if Nutcracker was otherwise a decent sort, he wouldn’t beat around the bush with Mouse King, and he would soon regain his earlier good looks.
Uncle and Nephew
If any one of my hig
hly esteemed readers or listeners has ever accidentally cut himself on broken glass, he will personally know how painful it is, and how awful it is altogether since it heals so slowly. Marie had to spend nearly a whole week in bed because she felt so dizzy whenever she stood up. But finally she was hale and hearty again, as ever, springing all about the room. The inside of the glass cabinet looked very appealing since trees and blossoms and houses and lovely, glowing dolls stood there, new and shiny.
Above all, Marie found her dear Nutcracker, who, erect on the second shelf, smiled at her with sound little teeth. When she gazed at her favorite to her heart’s content, she suddenly felt very agitated. She saw everything Godfather Drosselmeier had told them—especially the story of Nutcracker and his quarrel with Frau Mouserink and her son.
Now Marie realized that her Nutcracker could be none other than young Drosselmeier from Nuremberg—the likable nephew, who, alas, was hexed by Frau Mouserink. As the tale was being told, Marie didn’t doubt for even an instant that the skillful clockmaker at the court of Pirlipat’s father could have been anyone else but Godfather Drosselmeier himself. “But why didn’t Uncle help you? Why didn’t he help you?”
That was Marie’s lament, and it raged livelier and livelier inside her, while the battle she was watching focused on Nutcracker’s crown and kingdom. Weren’t then all the other dolls his subjects, and wasn’t it then certain that the astronomer’s prophecy had come true, and that young Drosselmeier had become king of the kingdom of dolls? In properly weighing all these matters, wise Marie also believed that Nutcracker and his vassals had actually started living the moment she entrusted them with life and motion.
But that wasn’t the case. The figures in the cabinet remained stationary and motionless. And Marie, far from giving up her inner conviction, put the blame on the still effective spell cast by Frau Mouserink and her seven-headed son.
“Well, dear Herr Drosselmeier,” Marie spoke aloud to Nutcracker. “You may not be able to move or to speak. But I’m well aware that you understand me and that you fully know my good intentions with you. Count on my aid if you need it. At least, I want to ask my uncle to lend a helping hand when his skill calls for it.”
Nutcracker remained still and quiet. But Marie felt as if a gentle sigh were breathing through the glass cabinet, whereby the panes resounded—barely audible, but wondrously charming—and a faint chimelike voice appeared to be singing: “Little Marie, my guardian angel be! Yours I will be, my Marie!”
The girl felt a strange comfort in the icy shudders that flashed through her body. Twilight had arrived. The medical officer and Godfather Drosselmeier came into the room, and it wasn’t long before Luise had set the tea table, and the family sat around, talking about all kinds of cheerful things. Marie had very quietly brought in her little armchair and settled at Drosselmeier’s feet. Now when everybody held their tongue, Marie peered into Drosselmeier’s face with her big, blue eyes, and she said:
“I now know, dear Godfather, that my Nutcracker is really your nephew, young Drosselmeier from Nuremberg. He has become prince or rather king—all this has come true as was predicted by his companion, the astronomer. But you also know that he is on a war footing with the ugly Mouse King, the son of Frau Mouserink. Why don’t you help him?”
Marie then retold the entire account of the battle as she had witnessed it. She was often interrupted by the noisy laughter of Luise and the mother. Only Fritz and Drosselmeier remained earnest.
“Just where does the girl get all her nonsense from?” said the medical officer.
“Goodness,” the mother replied. “Why, she’s got a lively imagination. These are just dreams created by her ardent fever.”
“None of this is true,” said Fritz. “My red Hussars aren’t such cowards! Goodness, gracious me! Darn it all! How else would I come down?”
With a bizarre smile, Godfather Drosselmeier took Marie on his lap and spoke more gently than ever:
“Why, dear Marie, you’ve been given more than I, than any of us. Like Pirlipat, you are a native-born princess, for you rule a bright and lovely kingdom. But you’ll have to suffer a lot if you want to take charge of poor, deformed Nutcracker, since Mouse King persecutes him anywhere and everywhere. However, I’m not the one who can save him! Only you can rescue him. Be strong and loyal.”
Neither Marie nor anybody else knew what Drosselmeier meant. Instead, the medical officer found those words so strange that he checked Drosselmeier’s pulse: “Most worthy friend, you have a serious case of cerebral congestion. Let me write you a prescription.”
But the mother thoughtfully shook her head and murmured: “I can catch Godfather Drosselmeier’s drift, but I can’t articulate it clearly.”
Victory
It wasn’t long before Marie was awakened by a tapping in the moonlit night—a strange knocking that seemed to originate in a corner of the room. It sounded like small stones being hurled and rolled to and fro, with a quite repulsive squeaking and squealing in between.
“Ah! The mice, the mice are returning!” Marie shouted in horror, and she tried to wake up her mother. But every sound stuck in her throat. Indeed, she couldn’t stir at all when she saw Mouse King burrowing his way through a hole in the wall. With sparkling eyes and crowns, he then scurried about the room. Finally, with a tremendous jump, he landed on the nightstand right at Marie’s bedside: “Hee, hee, hee, you must give me your sugar peas, your marzipan—see! Otherwise I’ll chew up your Nutcracker, hee—your Nutcracker, see!” That was Mouse King, hideously munching and crunching with his teeth; and then he swiftly jumped back through the hole.
Marie was so frightened by the gruesome spectacle that when she woke up the next morning, she was utterly pale, and so agitated that she was unable to utter a word. A hundred times, she wanted to tell her mother or Luise or at least Fritz what had happened to her. But then she thought: “Will anyone believe me, and won’t they laugh their heads off in the bargain?” But one thing was clear. In order to save Nutcracker, she would have to hand over her sugar peas and her marzipan.
That evening, she took as many of those supplies as she had, and she placed them on the ledge of the cabinet. The next morning her mother said: “I just don’t know where the mice are coming from in our living room. Look at poor Marie! They’ve gobbled up all your sweets!”
And it was true. The greedy Mouse King didn’t much care for filled marzipan, but he had gnawed on it with his sharp teeth, so that it had to be thrown away. Marie shrugged off the loss of the sweets; she was so delighted that, as she believed, her Nutcracker was saved.
Still, how did she feel the following night when the squeaking and squealing were right on her ears? Ah, Mouse King was back. His eyes sparkled more dreadfully than on the previous night, and the whistling between his teeth was even more repulsive.
“You have to give me your sugar dolls and your tragacanth dolls, you little thing. Otherwise, you little thing, I’ll chew up your Nutcracker, your Nutcracker!” And the gruesome Mouse King sped away!
The next morning, Marie was very sad as she went over to the cabinet and most dolefully gazed at her sugar and tragacanth dolls. But her pain was valid. For, my attentive listener, Marie, you may not believe what loving figures shaped out of sugar and tragacanth belonged to little Marie Stahlbaum.
Next to her, a very handsome shepherd with a shepherdess was grazing an entire herd of milk white lambs, accompanied by his bold little dog. There were also two postmen carrying mail, and four very attractive couples—cleanly dressed youths with wonderfully clad girls swinging in Russian swings. Behind several dancers stood the Maid of Orleans, by whom Marie didn’t set much store. But deep in the corner there stood a red-cheeked boy, Marie’s favorite, and the tears poured out of her eyes.
“Ah,” she cried, turning to Nutcracker. “Dear Drosselmeier, what wouldn’t I do to save you? But it’s so very difficult!”
Meanwhile, Nutcracker looked so tearful that—as if seeing Mouse King’s seven jaws wide open
and aiming at devouring the miserable youth—Marie decided to sacrifice everything. Hence, that evening, she placed all the sweet dolls, just as she had placed the sweets, on the ridge of the glass cabinet. She kissed the shepherd, the shepherdess, and the lambs. Then she finally brought her favorite, the little red-cheeked child of the tragacanth, from the corner, and she slipped him all the way back. The Maid of Orleans had to be moved to the first row.
“No! This is too awful!” the mother exclaimed the next morning. “Some huge, nasty mouse must be wreaking havoc in the glass cabinet, for all of Marie’s beautiful sugar dolls have been gnawed on and nibbled on.” Marie couldn’t help weeping, but she soon smiled again, for she thought to herself: “What does it matter? Nutcracker’s been saved!”
In the evening, the mother told Drosselmeier about the mischief worked by a mouse in the children’s cabinet. “It’s appalling that we can’t destroy the obnoxious mouse that’s acting up in the glass cabinet, gobbling away poor Marie’s sweets.”
“Goodness,” Fritz broke in cheerfully. “The baker downstairs has a fabulous gray cat. I’ll bring him here. He’ll soon put an end to the issue and bite off the mouse’s head—whether it’s Frau Mouserink herself or her son, Mouse King.”
“And,” the mother went on with a laugh, “the cat will jump around on chairs and tables and throw down cups and glasses and commit a thousand other kinds of mayhem.”
“Oh, not at all!” Fritz retorted. “The baker’s cat is very deft. I wish I could climb up to the tip of the roof as delicately as that cat.”
“Just no tomcat at night,” said Luise, who couldn’t stand cats.
“Actually,” said the medical officer, “actually, Fritz is right. Meanwhile we can set a trap! Don’t we have one?”
“Godfather Drosselmeier can do the best job,” said Fritz. “After all, he invented the mousetrap!” Everyone laughed.
When the mother assured them that no trap was to be found in the house, Drosselmeier announced that he owned several. He went home and an hour later he returned with an excellent mousetrap. Now the godfather’s tale of the hard nut grew lively, even apparent for Fritz and Marie. When the cook was roasting the bacon, Marie shivered and shuddered.
Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker Page 8
