At the same time, an artillery broadside, coming from the stool, responded by shooting a hail of bullets into the thick of the mouse masses.
Almost simultaneously, the full Hussar regiment charged forth: On one side, the dust kicked up by the hooves of horses; on the other side, the thickening smoke of the cannons. Either way, Marie was unable to view the battlefield.
Still, amid the booming of cannons, the shouting of combatants, the rattling of the dying, the girl kept hearing the voice of Nutcracker prevailing over the entire fracas.
“Sergeant Harlequin!” he yelled. “Take twenty men, and throw yourself as a sharpshooter on the enemy flanks! Lieutenant Punchinello! Form a square! Captain Clown! Order the platoon to fire! Colonel of the Hussars! Charge in masses and not in fours, as you’ve been doing! Bravo, my lead soldiers! Bravo! If everyone did their duty as you do, we would carry the day!”
However, through that very encouragement, Marie knew that the fighting was ferocious and the victory indecisive. The mice, thrown back by the Hussars, decimated by the platoon firing, knocked over by the hails of bullets, kept returning faster and faster, biting and shredding anything in their path! As in the melees during the period of chivalry, there was an atrocious hand-to-hand combat, in which each participant attacked and defended himself without concern for his neighbor. Nutcracker tried, ineffectively, to govern all the different movements and to proceed in terms of masses. The Hussars, shoved back by an enormous corps of mice, had scattered, and they attempted, ineffectively, to rally around their colonel. A huge battalion of mice had cut them off from the army corps, overwhelming the Civic Guard, who worked miracles.
The Swiss guard of the parish thrashed about with his halberd like a devil in a basin of holy water. The cook skewered entire ranks of mice on his spit. The lead soldiers stood like a lofty wall. But Harlequin, with his twenty men, had been repulsed and so he came here, seeking the protection of the battery. However, Lieutenant Punchinello’s square had been shattered, and, fleeing the remains, he had strewn disorder in the Civic Guard. Finally, Captain Clown had stopped shooting—for lack of cartridges, no doubt—and was now withdrawing, albeit only step-by-step, but at least he was moving.
As the result of this retrograde motion, which was drawn all along the front lines, the battery of cannons was fully exposed. Aware that triumph hinged on that very battery, Mouse King ordered his most seasoned troops to attack it. Within a second, the stool was escaladed, and the gunners were killed on their guns. One gunner even set fire to his own caisson, enveloping some twenty foes in his heroic death.
But all this courage was useless against the sheer numbers, and soon a hail of bullets, taken from his own guns and striking at the very core of Nutcracker’s battalion, informed him that the battery had succumbed to enemy power.
Once the battle was lost, Nutcracker focused purely on making an honorable retreat. Still, to give his troops a breathing spell, he summoned the reserves.
The gingerbread men and the bodies of sugar candy came down from the cabinet and gave tit for tat. These troops were fresh but inexperienced. The gingerbread men were particularly awkward and, striking without rhyme or reason, they crippled friend and foe alike. The bodies of the bonbons stood their ground. But there was nothing homogenous about the combatants. They were emperors, knights, Tyroleans, gardeners, cupids, monkeys, lions, or crocodiles. So they couldn’t unite their progress, and they had power only in masses.
However, their competition had one useful outcome. No sooner had the mice tasted gingerbread men and nibbled on sugar candy bodies than they abandoned their lead soldiers. It was with great difficulty that they had bitten those warriors. And they also abandoned the Punchinellos, the clowns, the Harlequins, the Swiss sentinels, and the cooks, who were simply enveloped in tow and padding. They pounced on the miserable reservists, who were instantaneously surrounded by thousands of mice. After a heroic defense, they were devoured bag and baggage.
Nutcracker wanted to profit from this moment of rest by rallying his army. But the ghastly spectacle of the annihilation of the reserves had frozen even the most fiery courage. Clown was as pale as death; Harlequin’s suit was in rags; a mouse had gnawed into Punchinello’s hump and, like the young Spartan’s fox, the mouse gobbled up his entrails. Finally, the Hussar colonel was taken prisoner together with a segment of his regiment. And, thanks to the horses of these wretched captives, a unit of cavalry mice had just been formed.
There was no issue of victory for unfortunate Nutcracker; nor was there an issue of retreat. The sole issue was death. Nutcracker took charge of a small group of men, who were as intent as he on selling their lives dearly.
During that time, desolation reigned among the dolls. Mademoiselle Claire and Mademoiselle Rose twisted their arms while emitting loud cries.
“Alas!” said Mademoiselle Claire. “Must I die in the prime of life? I? The king’s daughter? With such a lovely future ahead of me?”
“Alas!” said Mademoiselle Rose. “Must I die alive to the enemy’s power? And haven’t I taken good care of myself—only to be gnawed by filthy mice?”
The other dolls scurried tearfully, their cries mingling with the laments of the two principal dolls. Meanwhile, things were going from bad to worse for Nutcracker. He had just been deserted by his few remaining friends. The remnants of the Hussar squadron had sought refuge in the cabinet. The lead soldiers had fallen completely to the enemy power. The artillerists had long since been wiped out. The Civic Guard had died like the three hundred Spartans, without taking a single step back. Nutcracker was joined side by side against the edge of the cabinet, which he tried in vain to escalade. For that, he needed the help of Mademoiselle Claire or Mademoiselle Rose. But the two of them had decided to vanish.
Nutcracker made a final effort. Gathering all his resources, he cried out in the agony of despair: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
But, like the voice of King Richard III, Nutcracker’s voice was ignored—or rather, it exposed his whereabouts to the enemy. Two sharpshooters pounced on him and grabbed him by his wooden cape. At that same moment, they heard the voice of Mouse King, whose seven heads were hollering. “If you value your necks, take him alive. Remember that I have to avenge my mother. Her torture has to horrify any future Nutcrackers.”
And the king hurled himself on the prisoner!
But Marie couldn’t support that ghastly spectacle any longer. “Oh! My poor Nutcracker!” she sobbed. “Oh! My poor Nutcracker! I love you with all my heart! And now I have to watch you perish like this!”
Marie instinctively, and without realizing what she was doing, pulled off one shoe and flung it with all her strength into the thick of the melee. She had such good aim that the terrible projectile struck Mouse King, and he rolled in the dust. At that same moment, king and army, victors and vanquished, disappeared as if obliterated. Marie felt a sharper pain than ever in her wounded arm. She wanted to reach the easy chair in order to sit. But she didn’t have the strength, and so she fainted.
The Illness
When Marie awoke from her lethargic slumber, she found herself lying in her little bed. The sun, radiant and brilliant, shone through the frosted panes. Next to her sat a visitor, whom she soon recognized as Dr. Wandelstern the surgeon. Once her eyes opened, he murmured: “She’s awake!”
The mother came over and scrutinized her daughter with a nervous and frightened look.
“Ah! Dear Mama!” little Marie exclaimed upon perceiving her. “Have all those dreadful mice gone away? And was my poor Nutcracker saved?”
“For heaven’s sake, my dear Marie! Stop talking nonsense! I ask you: What do the mice have to do with Nutcracker? You naughty child—you scared us all half to death! And all this is what happens when children get obstinate and disobedient. You played with your dolls here until late at night. You probably dozed off, and maybe you were frightened by a little mouse. Finally, in your terror, you banged your elbow against the cabinet mirror. The gash was s
o bad that when Dr. Wandelstern extracted the last remaining glass fragments, he warned us that you risked cutting your artery and dying of the loss of blood. Thank God I awoke! I don’t know what time it was! But I remembered that I had left you in the salon. I entered it. Poor child! You were sprawled on the floor, near the cabinet. And you were surrounded by a chaos of dolls. Clowns, Punchinellos, lead soldiers, gingerbread men, and Fritz’s Hussars lay strewn around pell-mell. As for you, you were holding Nutcracker on your bleeding arm. But how come you removed your left shoe, which was only two or three steps away?”
“Oh! Mama, Mama!” replied Marie, still shuddering at the memory of all that. “You can see that these are the traces of the great battle that was fought here between the dolls and the mice. What terrified me was to see the victorious mice capturing poor Nutcracker, who was in command of the army of dolls. That was when I flung my shoe at Mouse King. I don’t know anything that occurred after that.”
The surgeon blinked at the mother, who softly told Marie: “Forget about all that, my child, and calm down. All the mice have left, and little Nutcracker is in the mirror cabinet, joyful and healthy.”
The father entered the room in his turn and chatted with the surgeon for a long time. But of all they said, Marie caught only one word: “Delirium!”
Marie guessed that they were skeptical about her story. Now that a new day was dawning, the little girl perfectly understood that they viewed everything that had happened to her as a fable. She didn’t insist, she submitted to whatever they desired, for she was eager to visit her poor Nutcracker. She knew that he had retreated from the free-for-all safe and sound, and for the moment that was all she wished to know.
However, Marie was bored stiff. Because of her injured arm, she couldn’t play. And when she tried to read or to leaf through a picture book, everything spun so quickly before her eyes that she had to renounce that distraction. Time dragged by horribly, and she looked forward to the evening, because that was when her mother sat at her bedside, telling her stories or reading them aloud.
One evening, the mother had just recounted the delightful story of Prince Facardin, when the door opened, and Godfather Drosselmayer stuck in his head, saying:
“I have to see the poor patient with my own two eyes!”
But the instant Marie spotted Godfather Drosselmayer with his glass periwig, his eye patch, and his yellow frock coat, she was flooded with vivid memories. She recalled the night that Nutcracker had lost the famous battle against the mice, and her recollection was so intense that she involuntarily cried out:
“Oh! Godfather Drosselmayer! You were horrible! I saw you clearly when you were straddling the clock, and your wings were covering the clock so that it couldn’t strike the hours. The loud noise of the stroke would have driven away the mice. I heard you calling the king with seven heads. Why didn’t you come to rescue my poor Nutcracker, you awful person, you? Alas! By not coming, you made me get wounded—and in my own bed, to boot!”
The mother listened, wide-eyed. She believed that the poor child was becoming delirious once more. Terrified, she asked her: “Why, what are you saying, dear Marie? Are you losing your mind all over again?”
“Not at all!” Marie retorted. “And Godfather Drosselmayer knows I’m telling the truth!”
However, without responding, the godfather made hideous faces, like a man who’s been walking on live coals. All at once, he recited in a twangy monotone:
Perpendicular
Must hum.
Advance and retreat,
Brilliant squadron!
The plaintive clock
Is about to strike midnight.
The owl arrives
And the king flees.
Perpendicular
Must hum.
Advance and retreat,
Brilliant squadron!
Marie peered with more and more haggard eyes at the godfather, for he seemed even uglier than usual. She would have been atrociously scared if her mother hadn’t been present, and if Fritz, who had just entered, hadn’t interrupted this bizarre chant by laughing his head off.
“Godfather Drosselmayer!” said Fritz. “Do you know that you are extremely clownish today? You make gestures like my old Punchinello, whom I threw behind the stove—not to mention your song, which lacks common sense.”
But the mother remained very serious. “Dear Medical Counselor,” she said. “That’s a singular joke you’re playing. It appears to have no other goal than to make Marie even sicker than she is.”
“Bah!” replied Godfather. “Dear Madame! Don’t you recognize the clockmaker ditty that I’m in the habit of singing whenever I come here to repair your timepieces?”
At the same moment, he settled by Marie’s bed, saying: “Don’t be angry, dear child, just because I didn’t rip out Mouse King’s fourteen eyes with my bare hands. I knew what I was doing, and today, since I want us to be friends again, I’m going to tell you a story.”
“What kind of story?” Marie asked.
“The story of Krakatuk Nut and Princess Pirlipat. Do you know the story?”
“No, my dear little Godfather,” the girl responded, instantly becoming friends again with the clockmaker. “Tell the story! Tell it!”
“Dear Counselor,” said the mother. “I do hope that your story won’t be as lugubrious as your song.”
“Oh, no! Dear lady!” Godfather replied. “My story is enormously funny.”
“Then do tell us the story!” the children shouted. “Tell us!”
And Godfather Drosselmayer began.
The Tale of Krakatuk Nut and Princess Pirlipat
How Princess Pirlipat was born, and what great joy her birth gave her illustrious parents
In the environs of Nuremberg there was a tiny kingdom that was not Prussia or Poland or Bavaria or the Palatinate, and it was ruled by a king.
One day, the king’s wife, who was therefore a queen, gave birth to a little girl, who therefore found herself as a princess by birth, and who received the graceful and distinguished name of Pirlipat.
The king was promptly notified of this happy event. He came rushing, out of breath, and upon seeing this pretty little girl lying in her cradle, he felt the deep satisfaction of being the father of such a charming infant. He was so explosive, that he emitted loud shouts of joy, then started dancing in a whirl, and finally hopped on one foot, saying: “Ah! Great God, you see angels every day. Have you ever seen anyone so beautiful as my Pirlipat?”
The king had been followed by the ministers, the generals, the high officers, the presidents, the councilors, and the judges. Seeing the king dancing and hopping, they all started dancing like him, saying: “No, no, never, Sire! No, no, never! There’s no one in the world so beautiful as your Pirlipat!”
Indeed, my dear children, you will be surprised to learn that no flattery was intended in that response. For there had never been a more beautiful child than Princess Pirlipat since the creation of the world. Her little face seemed woven out of delicate silk flakes—rosy as the roses and white as the lilies. Her eyes were the most sparkling azure, and nothing was more charming than to see the golden threads of her hairdo fuse into darling ringlets, crisp and brilliant curls on alabaster shoulders.
We must add that upon first seeing the light of day, the princess had brought along two rows of tiny teeth—or rather, veritable pearls. Two hours later, the Grand Chancellor, being myopic, got too close to the baby, who bit the man’s finger so vigorously, that despite his adherence to the school of the Stoics, he screamed.
A few people claim that he shrieked: “Damn it!”
Others maintain that in honor of philosophy, he merely said: “Ow! Ow! Ow!”
Today, opinions on this major issue are still divided, since neither of these two parties cares to give in. The only thing on which the “Damn its” and the “Ow! Ow! Ows!” agree, the sole fact that remains incontestable, is that Princess Pirlipat did indeed bite the Grand Chancellor’s finger. This showed the k
ingdom that there was as much mind as beauty in Pirlipat’s little body. Thus, everyone was happy in this country that was favored by heaven.
Only the queen was tremendously nervous and troubled, but nobody knew why. What struck people most of all was the vigilance with which this anxious mother had the infant’s cradle watched. Not only were all the doors protected by the trabants of the guard, but, aside from the two ladies-in-waiting who stayed near the queen, there were six others seated around the cradle and spelling one another every night. However, what piqued curiosity to the highest degree was something that no one understood: Why was each lady-in-waiting compelled to hold a cat on her lap and to scratch it all night long so that it wouldn’t stop purring?
I am convinced, my dear children, that you are as curious as the inhabitants of that little anonymous kingdom to solve the mystery of the cats. Why did the six ladies have to each keep a cat on her lap and scratch it incessantly so that it wouldn’t stop purring? Well, since you’ll never solve the enigma, I’ll explain it and spare you the headache that would probably result for you.
One day, half a dozen of the finest sovereigns agreed to simultaneously visit our heroine’s future father-in-law, for at that time Princess Pirlipat had not been born as yet. The visiting sovereigns were accompanied by the most agreeable crown princes, hereditary grand dukes, and pretenders. For our host, who was one of the most glorious of monarchs, this was an occasion to make a huge breach in his treasury and to put on lots of tournaments, tilting matches, and plays.
Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker Page 14
