During that discourse, the toy dealer had repeatedly shaken his fingers, hopped on one leg, and clucked. In an entirely different circumstance, the technician would have most likely asked him what those motions signify. But he was so absorbed in recounting his adventures that he saw nothing. It was only when his brother muttered “Hum! Hum!” twice and “Oh! Oh! Oh!” three times that he asked the meaning of those exclamations.
“The meaning,” said Zacharias, “is that it would be the devil…Oh, no! Oh, yes!”
“That it would be the devil?” the technician repeated.
“Yes…,” the toy dealer continued.
“Yes, what?” Master Drosselmayer asked.
Instead of replying, Zacharias, who, during all these broken questions and answers, had most likely been gathering his memories, now hurled his periwig into the air and started dancing and shouting: “Brother, you are saved! Brother, you won’t go to prison! Brother, unless I’m awfully mistaken, I am the owner of Krakatuk Nut!”
And, offering his flabbergasted brother no further explanation, Christophe-Zacharias dashed out of the apartment and then came back an instant later with a box containing a big gilded filbert, which he presented to the technician.
The latter, not daring to believe in so much good fortune, took the nut hesitantly, turning it every which way and examining it with the care that it deserved. After that inspection, the technician stated that he agreed with his brother, and that he’d be quite astonished if the filbert weren’t Krakatuk Nut. He passed it on to the astrologer, asking his opinion.
After examining the filbert no less attentively than Master Drosselmayer had done, the astrologer shook his head and replied:
“I would share your opinion and, by consequence, your brother’s opinion if the filbert weren’t gilded. Nowhere in the stars have I found that the fruit we are seeking should be clad in this adornment. Besides, how did you come to possess Krakatuk Nut in the first place?”
“Let me explain,” said Zacharius, “how the Nut fell into my hands, and why it has this gilt, which prevents you from recognizing it, and which is certainly not natural to it.”
He then had the two visitors sit down, for he quite judiciously figured that they were bound to be tired after a trek of fourteen years and nine months. And then the toy dealer began his account:
“The same day on which the king summoned you under the pretext of giving you the cross, a stranger arrived in Nuremberg, carrying a sack of nuts that he planned to sell. However, the local nut merchants, who wanted to preserve their monopoly, picked a fight with him, right outside the door to their shop.
“Trying to defend himself more easily, the stranger put his sack on the ground. The battle wore on, much to the satisfaction of the street urchins and the commissioners, when an overloaded wagon rolled across the sack of nuts. Seeing this accident, which they attributed to divine justice, the local merchants felt sufficiently avenged and they left the stranger alone. The stranger collected the nuts, and, indeed, all of them were crushed—except for one, which he presented to me with a singular grin. He urged me to buy that nut for a new twenty-ducat piece minted in 1720, promising that eventually I would no longer be angry about this purchase, so onerous as it might strike me at the moment. I dug through my pocket and I was very surprised to find a twenty-ducat piece quite similar to the one the stranger was requesting of me. The coincidence was so bizarre that I handed him my twenty-ducat piece, he handed me the Nut, and he disappeared.
“I put the Nut up for sale, and even though I was asking for the price it had cost me, plus two kreutzers, it remained on display for seven or eight years; but I could find no buyers. I therefore decided to have it gilded in order to raise its value. But I merely wasted two more twenty-ducat pieces. Until today, the Nut has still found no takers.”
At that moment, the astrologer, who was holding the Nut, shrieked for joy! During Master Drosselmayer’s discourse to his brother, the astrologer, using a penknife, had delicately scraped the gilt on the Nut, and, in a tiny corner of the shell, he had found the name Krakatuk engraved in Chinese characters.
There could no longer be any doubt! The identity of the Nut was acknowledged.
How, after finding Krakatuk Nut, the technician had also found the young man who was supposed to crack it
Christian-Elias Drosselmayer was so eager to bring the good news to the king that he wanted to climb into the return coach immediately. But Christophe-Zacharias asked him to at least wait until the toy dealer’s son came home. The technician was all the more anxious to honor this request since he hadn’t seen his nephew for fifteen years. In gathering his memories, he recalled that when he, the uncle, had left Nuremberg, the nephew had been a charming little boy of three and a half, whom Elias loved with all his heart.
At that instant, a handsome young man of eighteen or nineteen stepped into the shop and approached the toy dealer, addressing him as “Father.”
After embracing him, Zacharias introduced him to Elias, saying to the young man: “Now hug your uncle!”
The young man hesitated. There was absolutely nothing appealing about Uncle Drosselmayer, with his bald head, his eye patch, and his tattered frock coat. But since the father noticed his son’s hesitation, he was afraid that Elias would be offended. He therefore pushed his son, so that, for better or worse, the young man landed in his uncle’s arms.
Meanwhile, the astrologer was focusing his eyes on the young man, with a continuous attention that appeared so bizarre that he seized upon the first pretext to leave. Being gaped at like that made him ill at ease.
The astrologer asked Zacharias for a few details about his son, and the father readily complied with a thoroughly paternal verbosity.
As his face indicated, young Drosselmayer was seventeen or eighteen years old. From his earliest childhood, he was so funny and so gentle that his mother enjoyed dressing him like the dolls in the shop—that is, like a student or a postilion or a Hungarian. Moreover, it was always a costume that required boots. For, since he had the loveliest feet in the world but slightly thin calves, the boots emphasized the quality and concealed any defects.
“And so,” the astrologer asked Zacharias, “your son has never worn anything but boots?”
Elias’s eyes opened wide.
“My son has never worn anything but boots,” the toy dealer repeated. He then went on: “At the age of ten, I sent him to the University of Tübingen, where he remained until he turned eighteen without developing any of the bad habits of his fellow students, without drinking, without cursing, without fighting. His sole weakness is that he lets four or five bad hairs grow on his chin and he refuses to let a barber touch his face.”
“And so,” the astrologer replied, “your son has never shaved his face?”
Elias’s eyes opened wider and wider.
“Never!” Zacharias responded.
“What about vacations?” the astrologer continued. “How did he spend his time?”
“He stayed in my shop, sporting his pretty little student costume,” said the father, “and, out of sheer gallantry, he cracked nuts for girls who came to buy toys and who nicknamed him Nutcracker.”
“Nutcracker?” the technician exclaimed.
“Nutcracker?” the astrologer echoed.
The two of them exchanged glances while Zacharias looked at both of them.
“My dear sir,” the astrologer said to Zacharias, “I do believe you’ve made your fortune.”
The toy dealer, who was not indifferent to that forecast, wanted an explanation. But the astrologer said they would have to wait until the next morning.
When the technician and the astrologer reentered their chamber, the astrologer threw his arms around his friend, saying: “It’s him! We’ve got him!”
“Do you think so?” Elias asked in the tone of a man who doubts but who wishes nothing better than to be convinced.
“Goodness! If I think so? He seems to have all the qualities.”
“Re
capitulate.”
“He has never worn anything but boots.”
“That’s true.”
“He has never been shaved.”
“That’s true, too.”
“Finally, through gallantry or rather by vocation, he stayed in his father’s shop in order to crack nuts for girls who only called him Nutcracker.”
“That’s true, too.”
“My dear friend, all good things come in pairs. Anyway: if you’re still skeptical, let’s go and consult the stars.”
They went up to the terrace of the house. Casting the young man’s horoscope, they saw that he was destined for a great future. This prediction, confirming all the hopes of the astrologer, compelled the technician to submit to his opinion.
“And now,” said the triumphant astrologer, “there are only two things we should not neglect.”
“What are they?” asked Elias.
“First of all, we have to adjust a tough wooden plait to the back of your nephew’s neck—a plait working so well with the jaw that the pressure can double the force.”
“Nothing could be simpler,” Elias replied. “That’s the ABC of mechanics.”
“Secondly,” the astrologer continued, “when we arrive at the residence, we have to carefully hide the fact that we have brought along the young man who is destined to smash Krakatuk Nut. I believe that the more broken teeth and the more dislocated jaws result from efforts to crack Krakatuk Nut, the more likely the king will be to offer a gigantic reward to the man who succeeds where so many others have failed.”
“My dear friend,” the technician responded, “you are a man of good common sense. Let’s go to bed.”
Leaving the terrace and returning to their chamber, the two friends went to bed. They tied their cotton bonnets around their ears and then slept more peacefully than they had ever done in the past fourteen years and nine months.
The next morning, the two friends went to Zacharias and told him about all the wonderful plans they had forged the night before. Now, Zacharias did not lack ambition, and so his paternal ego was flattered that his son should have one of the most powerful jaws in Germany. He therefore enthusiastically accepted the arrangement that took not only Nut but also Nutcracker from his shop.
It was harder convincing the young man. He was especially worried about the plait that was to be applied to the back of his neck in lieu of the elegant purse, which he carried so gracefully. However, the astrologer, as well as the uncle and the father, made him such marvelous promises that he finally gave in. And since Elias Drosselmayer got to work instantly, the plait was soon finished and then tightly screwed into the back of the neck of this hopeful young man. To satisfy the curiosity of our readers, we must hasten to add that this ingenious apparatus succeeded perfectly, and that, from the very outset, our skillful technician obtained the most brilliant results with the toughest and most obstinate pits of apricots and peaches.
After these experiences, the astrologer, the technician, and the young Drosselmayer immediately started out for the residence. Zacharias would have liked to accompany them, but since somebody had to guard the shop, this excellent father sacrificed himself and remained in Nuremberg.
The End of the Tale of Princess Pirlipat
When the travelers arrived, their first concern was to install young Drosselmayer at the inn while the two friends went to the palace to announce that, after searching fruitlessly through the four continents, they had finally tracked down Krakatuk Nut in Nuremberg. But, as they had agreed, they didn’t breathe a word about the man who was to crack it.
There was great joy in the palace. The king promptly summoned his privy councilor, the guardian of public feeling, who kept supreme control over all newspapers. The ruler ordered the councilor to write an official note for the Royal Monitor—a note that other newspaper editors would be forced to repeat. In substance, it would say that any man who believed his teeth were strong enough to crack Krakatuk Nut need merely present himself at the palace. If the operation succeeded, he would receive a generous reward.
Only in a comparable circumstance can we appreciate how many jaws are to be found in a kingdom. There were so many applicants that the authorities were obliged to establish a jury presided over by the Crown Dentist, who examined the contestants to see if they had their thirty-two teeth and to make sure that no tooth was decayed.
Three thousand five hundred candidates were admitted to the first test, which lasted a week, resulting only in an indefinite number of broken teeth and cracked mandibles.
So they decided to make a second appeal. The domestic and foreign gazettes were covered with ads. The king offered the position of lifetime chairman of the Academy and the Order of the Golden Spider to the upper jaw that would smash Krakatuk Nut. Literacy was not required.
This second test drew five thousand applicants. All the learned associations sent their representatives to this important congress. Several members of the French Academy could be spotted, among others, with its lifetime secretary. The latter was unable to compete because of the absence of his teeth, which he had broken while trying to rip up the works of his colleagues.
The second test, which lasted for two weeks, was—alas!—even more disastrous than the first. The delegates of scholarly bodies, among others, stubbornly insisted on trying to crack Nut for the honor of their learned societies. But all they accomplished was to leave their best teeth behind them.
As for Nut, its shell didn’t show even a single trace of the efforts to penetrate it.
The king was in despair. He resolved to make a dramatic move. Since he had no male descendant, he published a third ad in all domestic and foreign gazettes. The new ad said that whoever cracked Krakatuk Nut would be granted the hand of Princess Pirlipat and the succession to the throne. The sole condition was that the contender had to be between sixteen and twenty-four years old.
The guarantee of that reward moved the whole of Germany. The candidates came from every corner of Europe. Indeed, they would also have come from Asia, Africa, and America as well as from the fifth continent, which had been discovered by Elias Drosselmayer and his friend the astrologer. But their time was limited. The readers could have judiciously reflected that only when they read the ad, the test could have already commenced or already finished.
This time, the technician and the astrologer felt that the moment had come for them to produce young Drosselmayer, for the king could not have supplied a higher prize or a more wonderful reward. The two travelers were confident about their success even though a throng of princes with royal or imperial jaws had arrived. The two friends, however, did not register with the Bureau of Inscriptions (you are free to confuse the Bureau of Inscriptions with the Bureau of Belles Lettres) until right before it closed. The name Nathaniel Drosselmayer was the 11,375th and it was the final name on the list.
Their efforts were all the same. Nathaniel Drosselmayer’s 11,374 competitors were disabled. And on the nineteenth day of the test, at 11:35 A.M., just as the princess was completing her fifteenth year, the name Nathaniel Drosselmayer was called out. The young man presented himself, accompanied by his two godfathers—the technician and the astrologer.
This was the first time these two illustrious personages had seen the princess since leaving the side of her cradle. Since then, she had undergone tremendous changes. But, to be perfectly frank as a historian, the changes had not been to her advantage. When the two friends had left her, she had been merely awful. But now she had become dreadful.
Her body had grown a lot but with no weight. Nor could one understand how these skinny legs, these feeble hips, this shriveled torso could support that monstrous head. That head was made up of the same bristly hair, the same green eyes, the same immense mouth, the same fluffy chin, except that everything was fifteen years older. Upon seeing this hideous freak, poor Nathaniel shuddered and he asked the technician and the astrologer whether they were absolutely certain that the meat of Krakatuk Nut would restore the princess’s bea
uty. If she remained in her present state, Nathaniel was willing to take the test for the glory of succeeding where so many others had failed. But he would leave the honor of marriage and the benefit of succession to the throne to whoever would care to accept them. Needless to say, the technician and the astrologer assured their godson that once Nut was cracked and its meat was eaten, Pirlipat would instantly revert to being the most beautiful princess on earth.
But, if the sight of the princess had frozen poor Nathaniel’s heart, we must say in his honor that his presence had produced the very opposite effect on the sensitive heart of the successor to the crown. And she couldn’t help exclaiming: “Oh! I hope that he’s the man who cracks Nut!”
To which the Supervisor of the Princess’s Education retorted: “I must point out to Your Highness that it is not customary for a young and lovely princess like yourself to voice her opinion in such matters.”
Now, Nathaniel was appealing enough to turn the heads of all the princesses in the world. He sported a short, violet velvet polonaise with frogs and loops as well as gold buttons, a garment that his uncle had ordered for this solemn occasion. Nathaniel also wore similar culottes, plus charming little boots, which were so snug and well polished that they looked painted. It was only that miserable wooden pigtail screwed in his nape that slightly marred the ensemble. But, by inserting extension pieces, Uncle Drosselmayer had provided the shape of a small cape, which, in a pinch, could pass for a vagary of Nathaniel’s wardrobe, or for some new fashion that his tailor, given the circumstance, was trying to introduce at court very gently.
And so, watching the young and charming little man enter the court, the princess’s ladies-in-waiting very softly murmured to one another the words that the princess had been imprudent enough to voice out loud. Nor was there a single person, not even the king and the queen, who did not wish at the bottom of their hearts that Nathaniel would carry the day.
Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker Page 17
