The Nutcracker Read online

  “The Queen, in despair, flung herself at his feet and sobbed, ‘Oh, my poor unhappy royal husband! Ah, what pain you have had to suffer! Here lies the guilty party at your feet—punish her, punish her severely! Mistress Mousie with her seven sons and her cousins and her aunts ate up the bacon, and—’ But here the Queen herself tumbled over backwards in a faint.

  “As for the King, he leapt up in a rage and called out, ‘Head Court Housekeeper, how could such a thing happen?’ The Head Court Housekeeper told him all she knew, and the King decided to be revenged on Mistress Mousie and her family for eating up the bacon meant for his sausages. The Privy Council was summoned, and it was decided to make short work of Mistress Mousie and seize all her goods and chattels. But as it then occurred to the King that she would still be able to steal the bacon from under his very nose and eat it, the whole matter was handed over to the Court Clockmaker and Master of the Arcana. This man, who bore my own name, to wit Christian Elias Drosselmeier, promised to carry out a very clever operation for the good of the state, one that would drive Mistress Mousie and her family from the palace for ever and ever. And sure enough, Clockmaker Drosselmeier devised very ingenious little machines in which grilled bacon was suspended from strings, and arranged them around Mistress Bacon-Eater’s home. Mistress Mousie was far too wise not to have seen through Drosselmeier’s cunning trick, but none of her warnings to her family of what would happen did any good. Enticed by the delicious smell of the bacon, all her seven sons and many, many of her cousins and her aunts scuttled into Drosselmeier’s traps, and when they were about to nibble the bacon a grating suddenly fell and held them captive, to be summarily executed in the kitchen. Mistress Mousie left this scene of terror with her little bundle. Grief, despair and a desire for revenge filled her breast.

  “The court rejoiced, but the Queen was anxious, for she knew Mistress Mousie’s disposition, and was well aware that she would not let the death of her sons and her other relations go unavenged. And sure enough, when the Queen was preparing a dish of which her husband was very fond, chopped calf’s lungs with onion and lemon sauce, along came Mistress Mousie and said, ‘Madam Queen, my sons and my cousins and my aunts are stone dead, so just you mind that the Mouse Queen doesn’t bite your little princess in two—take care, beware!’ So saying she disappeared again, and was seen no more, but the Queen was so scared that she dropped the chopped lungs with onion and lemon sauce into the fire, so for the second time Mistress Mousie had spoilt one of the king’s favourite dishes, which made him very angry.

  “Well—that’s enough for this evening. You can hear the rest of the story another time.”

  And much as Marie, who had been thinking her own thoughts during this story, begged Godfather Drosselmeier to go on with it, he was not to be moved, but jumped up saying, “Too much all at once is bad for you. I’ll tell you what happened next tomorrow.”

  Just as the Councillor was getting to his feet to go to the door, Fritz asked, “Do tell us, Godfather Drosselmeier, is it really true that you invented mousetraps?”

  “How can you ask such a silly question?” cried the children’s mother. But the Councillor smile a strange smile and said softly, “Am I not an ingenious clockmaker? What makes you think I couldn’t invent mousetraps?”

  THE TALE OF THE HARD NUT (CONTINUED)

  “SO NOW YOU KNOW, children,” Councillor Drosselmeier went on next evening, “now you know why the Queen had lovely little Princess Pirlipat watched over with such care. Didn’t she have good reason to fear that Mistress Mousie would carry out her threat to come back and bite the little Princess in two? Drosselmeier’s machines couldn’t catch the clever and artful Mistress Mousie, but the Court Astronomer, who was also the Privy High Astrologer and could interpret signs and omens, claimed that the family of the tomcat Purr would be able to keep Mistress Mousie away from the cradle. And that was why each of the nursemaids held one of the sons of that family on her lap—they had all, incidentally, been appointed Privy Councillors—and must pet him all the time to sweeten the performance of his onerous state duties for him.

  “At midnight one evening, one of the two Privy Head Nursemaids sitting right beside the cradle woke suddenly as if from a deep sleep. All the nursemaids and cats around her were slumbering as well—there was no purring, only a profound and mortal silence in which you could hear the woodworm munching away. But imagine how the Privy Head Nursemaid felt when she saw, right in front of her, a large and very ugly mouse standing upright on its back paws, with its terrible head down on the Princess’ face. She jumped up with a scream of horror, and everyone else awoke, but at that moment Mistress Mousie (for the huge mouse beside Pirlipat’s cradle was none other) scurried into a corner of the room. The Privy Feline Councillors gave chase, but too late—she had disappeared through a crack in the nursery floorboards. Little Pirlipat was woken by all the noise and wailed pitifully.

  “‘Thank Heaven!’ cried the nursemaids. ‘She’s alive!’ But imagine their horror when they looked at Pirlipatty and saw what had become of that beautiful, delicate child. Instead of her angelic little pink-and-white face surrounded by golden curls, a huge, shapeless head was now set on top of a tiny, crooked body, her azure blue orbs had turned to staring goggle eyes, and her little mouth now stretched from ear to ear. The Queen was nearly dead of grief and lamentation, and the King’s study had to be lined with quilted wallpaper because he kept ramming his head against the walls as he cried out in a pitiful voice, ‘Oh, unhappy monarch that I am!’ He could have realised at this point that it would have been better to eat his sausages without any bacon, leaving Mistress Mousie and her tribe in peace under the stove, but Pirlipat’s royal father never thought of that. Instead he laid all the blame on the Court Clockmaker and Master of the Arcana, Christian Elias Drosselmeier of Nuremberg. He therefore issued the following decree—within four weeks Drosselmeier must restore Princess Pirlipat to her previous condition, or at least discover a certain and infallible means whereby that might be done, and if he didn’t he was to suffer a shameful death by the executioner’s axe.

  “Drosselmeier was very much afraid, but soon he decided he could trust to his skill and his luck, and he immediately set about the first operation that looked like being useful. He very skilfully took little Princess Pirlipat apart, unscrewed her tiny hands and feet, and even examined her inner structure, but unfortunately he discovered that the larger the Princess would grow the more shapeless she would become, and he didn’t know what to do. He carefully put the Princess together again, and sank into a fit of melancholy beside her cradle, which he was never allowed to leave.

  “The fourth week had come, and indeed it was already Wednesday when the King looked in, eyes flashing angrily, and cried, brandishing his sceptre menacingly, ‘Christian Elias Drosselmeier, cure the Princess or you must die!’ Drosselmeier began to shed bitter tears, but little Princess Pirlipat was happily cracking nuts. For the first time, the Master of the Arcana noticed Pirlipat’s unusual appetite for nuts and remembered how she had come into the world with a full set of teeth. The fact was that immediately after her transformation she had screamed until a nut came her way by chance, she cracked it open at once, ate the kernel, and then she calmed down. After that the nursemaids thought nothing more advisable than to bring her nuts.

  “‘Oh sacred instinct of Nature, eternal sympathy of all creatures beyond our ken,’ cried Christian Elias Drosselmeier, ‘you show me the gate to the secret, I will knock, and the gate will open.’ And immediately he asked permission to speak to the Court Astronomer. He was taken to him under the escort of a strong guard. Both gentlemen embraced with many tears, for they were close friends. Then they withdrew into a private room and consulted many books on the subject of instinct, sympathies and antipathies, and other mysterious matters. Night fell, the Court Astronomer looked up at the stars, and with the aid of Drosselmeier, who was skilled in this field too, he cast the horoscope of Princess Pirlipat. This was a very difficult business, for th
e lines of her chart became more and more entangled, but in the end—what joy!—the answer lay there clear before them—to break the spell that made her ugly, and restore her to her former beauty, Princess Pirlipat had only to eat the sweet kernel of the Krakatuk nut.

  “Now the Krakatuk nut had such a hard shell that a forty-eight-pounder cannon could pass over it without cracking it. However, this hard nut must be bitten open in front of the Princess by a man who had never yet been shaved and had never worn boots, and the kernel must then be handed to her by this young man with his eyes closed. Only after he had taken seven steps backwards without stumbling could the young man open his eyes again. Drosselmeier had consulted with the astronomer for three days and three nights without stopping, and the King was just sitting down to luncheon on Saturday when Drosselmeier, who was to be beheaded early on Sunday morning, hurried in full of joy and jubilation, to announce that he had found the means of restoring Princess Pirlipat’s lost beauty. The King embraced him with great goodwill and promised him a sword set with diamonds, four orders, and two new Sunday coats. ‘As soon as we’ve had lunch,’ he said in friendly tones, ‘you must get down to work. Make sure, my dear Master of the Arcana, that the unshaven young man in shoes, not boots, is present with the Krakatuk nut in his hand, and don’t let him drink any wine before he arrives in case he stumbles when he has to go seven steps backwards crabwise. He can get as drunk as he likes afterwards!’

  “Drosselmeier was dismayed by these remarks from the King. Not without fear and trembling, he explained, stammering, that the method had indeed been found, but first both the Krakatuk nut and the young man to bite it open must be sought out, and moreover it was very doubtful that the nut and the nutcracker could ever be tracked down.

  “The King, in a towering rage, waved his sceptre above his crowned head and cried, roaring like a lion, ‘Then we’ll go ahead with the execution!’ Luckily for the terrified Drosselmeier the King had particularly enjoyed his luncheon that day, so consequently he was in a good temper and inclined to listen to sensible suggestions, and the Queen, being both good-natured and moved by Drosselmeier’s plight, had plenty of those to offer. Drosselmeier plucked up his courage and said that since he had in fact solved the puzzle of finding and naming the means of curing the Princess, he had earned his life back. The king called that a stupid excuse and simple-minded drivel, but finally, after drinking a little digestif to settle his stomach, he said that the pair of them, the Court Clockmaker and the Court Astronomer, had better get moving in a hurry, and were not to come back until they had found the Krakatuk nut. The man who was to bite open that nut, as the Queen said, might be found by placing an identical advertisement in all the newspapers and journals read by the intelligentsia both at home and abroad.”

  Here the Councillor interrupted his story again, promising to tell the rest of it on the following evening.

  THE TALE OF THE HARD NUT (CONTINUED)

  THAT EVENING, AS SOON AS THE LAMPS had been lit, Godfather Drosselmeier came to see the children again, and went on with his story.

  “Drosselmeier and the Court Astronomer travelled the world for fifteen years without ever getting on the trail of the Krakatuk nut. I could tell you stories about the places they visited and the strange and wonderful things that happened to them, dear children, but it would take me four whole weeks, so I will leave out all that and say only that at last, deep in despair, Drosselmeier felt a great longing to see his native city of Nuremberg again. That longing overcame him with particular intensity one day when he was sitting with his friend in the middle of a great forest in Asia, smoking a pipe of tobacco. ‘Oh, Nuremberg, my beautiful, beautiful native city!’ he cried. ‘Though a man may have travelled to London, Paris and Peterwardein, his heart has never truly opened until he has seen you, and then he is bound to long for you always—for you, oh lovely city of Nuremberg, a city of beautiful houses with windows in them.’

  “When Drosselmeier lamented in such sad tones the Astronomer was overcome by pity, and he began to weep and wail in sympathy, so that he could be heard all over Asia. However, he pulled himself together, wiped the tears from his eyes, and asked, ‘My highly esteemed colleague, why do we sit here weeping? Why not go to Nuremberg? Does it make any difference where and how we go looking for that fateful Krakatuk nut?’

  “‘No, it doesn’t. That’s very true,’ replied Drosselmeier, comforted. And they both immediately got to their feet, knocked out their pipes, left that forest in the middle of Asia and went straight to Nuremberg. No sooner had they arrived than Drosselmeier went to visit his cousin, the puppet-maker, painter and gilder Christoph Zacharias Drosselmeier, whom he hadn’t seen for many long years. The Clockmaker told the whole story of Princess Pirlipat, Mistress Mousie and the Krakatuk nut to his cousin, who kept clapping his hands and crying out, in amazement, ‘Why, cousin, cousin, what marvels you have seen!’ Drosselmeier went on to tell him about his adventures on his long journey, how he had spent two years at the court of the Date King, how he had been sent away in short order by the Almond Prince, how, with the assistance of the Society of Naturalists, he had interrogated squirrels in their nests, but in vain—in short, he told his cousin how he had failed to find any trace of the Krakatuk nut wherever he went.

  “During this narrative Christoph Zacharias had repeatedly snapped his fingers—had twirled around on one foot—and had clicked his tongue, calling out, ‘Well, well … upon my word! What the devil!’ At the end he threw his cap and wig up in the air, embraced his cousin heartily, and cried, ‘Cousin, cousin! You are saved, saved, I say! For unless I am very much mistaken, I myself am in possession of the Krakatuk nut.’ And he immediately brought out a box from which he took a gilded nut of medium size. ‘Look,’ said he, showing the nut to his cousin, ‘look at this nut, and I will tell you its story, which is as follows. Many years ago a stranger came to this town at Christmas time with a sack of nuts, which he was offering for sale. Right outside my puppet theatre he got into a quarrel and put down his sack, the better to defend himself against the local nut-sellers, who did not want a stranger competing with them and therefore attacked him. At that moment a heavily laden cart drove across his sack, and all the nuts were cracked except one. The stranger, with an odd sort of smile, offered me that one nut for the price of a shiny twenty-thaler piece minted in the year 1720. All this seemed very curious to me, but I found just such a coin as the man wanted in my pocket, bought the nut and gilded it, not really knowing myself why I had paid such a high price for the nut and then valued it so much.’

  “Any doubt that Drosselmeier’s cousin’s nut really was the Krakatuk nut they had been looking for was immediately banished when the Court Astronomer neatly scraped the gilding off, and found the word Krakatuk carved on the nutshell in Chinese characters. The joy of the travellers was great, and Cousin Christoph Zacharias was the happiest man alive when Drosselmeier assured him that his fortune was made, for besides a handsome pension in return for the nut he would get a free gift of all the gold he needed for his gilding.

  “Both the Master of the Arcana and the Astronomer had already put on their nightcaps and were going to bed when the latter, I mean the Astronomer, spoke these words. ‘My dear colleague, good things never come singly—would you believe it, we have found not only the Krakatuk nut but also the young man who can bite it open and give the Princess the kernel that will restore her beauty! I mean none other than your good cousin’s son! No, I’m not going to sleep,’ he went on with enthusiasm, ‘I am going to cast the young man’s horoscope this very night!’ And so saying, he snatched his nightcap off his head and immediately began observing the stars.

  “Cousin Christoph’s son was indeed a nice, well-grown young man who had never yet been shaved and had never worn boots. In his early youth, it is true, he had been a jumping jack for a few Christmases, but looking at him you would never know it now, he had been so well transformed by his father’s efforts. On the days of the Christmas festival he wore a handsome r
ed coat with gold braid, carried a sword, and wore his hair elegantly arranged and tied in a snood behind his head. He stood in his father’s workshop looking very handsome, cracking nuts with great gallantry for the young girls who came visiting, and so they prettily called him Nutcracker.

  “Next morning the Astronomer, delighted, embraced the Master of the Arcana and cried, ‘It’s just as I thought, we have him, he’s found, and now there are just two things, my dear colleague, that we must not neglect to do. First, you must make your excellent nephew a good strong wooden pigtail, connecting it to his lower jaw in such a way that the latter can be well pulled; second, when we come to the royal residence, we must be careful not to reveal that we have also brought with us the young man to bite the Krakatuk nut open. He must arrive some time after we do. I read in his horoscope that if several others have broken their teeth on it first, the king will give his daughter’s hand in marriage to the man who bites the nut open and restores her beauty, and he will also make him heir to the throne.’

  “Drosselmeier’s cousin the puppet-maker was very happy with the idea of his son’s marrying Princess Pirlipat and becoming first a prince and then king, and he left all the arrangements to the two envoys from court. The pigtail that Drosselmeier made for his promising young nephew worked extremely well, and young Drosselmeier succeeded brilliantly in cracking the hardest of peach stones.

  “As Drosselmeier and the Astronomer had sent word to the royal residence at once that they had found the Krakatuk nut, all the requisite invitations had immediately gone out, and when the travellers arrived bringing the means of restoring Pirlipat’s beauty many fine folk had already assembled, even including princes who, trusting to their good healthy teeth, wanted to try breaking the spell on the Princess. The envoys suffered a considerable shock when they saw Pirlipat again. Her little body with its tiny hands and feet could hardly support the weight of her shapeless head, and her face looked even uglier than before because of the white cotton-wool beard that had grown around her mouth and chin.