The Nutcracker Page 8
But Lady von Brakel replied, “No, no, you stay in the parlour like a good boy. I know what will happen once you go out, with Christlieb after you, the pair of you will be off as usual, up hill and down dale, through bushes and briars, scrambling up the trees! And then you’ll come back hot and grubby, and your uncle will say, ‘What ugly common peasant children! None of the Brakel family, large or small, ought to look like that!’”
Felix impatiently slammed the picture book shut and said under his breath, with tears coming to his eyes, “If his lordship our uncle talks about ugly common peasant children, then he can’t ever have seen Peter Vollrad or Annliese Hentschel or any of the other children here in our village. I don’t know how children could be any better-looking than they are!”
“You’re right!” cried Christlieb, as if suddenly waking from a dream. “And isn’t Grete Schulz a pretty girl, even if she doesn’t have such lovely red ribbon bows as mine?”
“Don’t talk such nonsense,” said their mother, half amused, half vexed. “You wouldn’t understand what his lordship your uncle meant by that.” And no further pleas, with the children telling her how lovely it was in the little wood today, of all days, did them any good at all. Felix and Christlieb had to stay in the parlour, and it was all the more of a torment because the cake for the guests was standing on the table, spreading the most delicious aroma through the air, yet it couldn’t be cut before the children’s uncle arrived. “Oh, I wish he’d hurry up, I do wish he’d hurry up and get here at last!” cried both children, almost weeping with impatience.
At long last the clip-clop of horses’ hooves was heard, and a coach drove up, so shiny and so heavily covered with gilded ornamentation that the children marvelled at it, for they had never seen anything of the kind before. A tall thin man was helped out by the huntsman who opened the door of the coach, and he fell into the arms of Sir Thaddeus von Brakel, against whose cheek he gently laid his own, murmuring softly, “Bonjour, my dear cousin, pray don’t stand on ceremony, I implore you!”
Meanwhile the huntsman had helped a small, plump lady with very red cheeks and two children, a boy and a girl, down to the ground from the coach, making sure that all of them kept their footing. When they were out of the coach Felix and Christlieb, on their father and mother’s instructions, each took one of the tall thin man’s hands and said, kissing it, “You are very welcome here, dear uncle, your lordship!” Then they did the same with the hands of the plump little lady, saying, “You are very welcome here, dear aunt, your ladyship!”
After that they went over to the children, but they stopped in surprise, because they had never before seen children like that. The boy wore long knickerbockers and a scarlet cloth jacket trimmed all over with gold lace and braid. He had a shiny little sword by his side and a strange red cap with a white feather in it on his head. Under this cap his sallow little face and dull, sleepy eyes looked out at the world shyly and rather stupidly. The girl wore a white dress like Christlieb’s, but lavishly decorated with ribbons and a great deal of lace, and her hair was plaited into braids in an elaborate way and pinned up on top of her head, with a bright little tiara sparkling at the top. Christlieb plucked up her courage and was going to take the little girl by the hand, but the child snatched her hand quickly away, making such a grumpy, tearful face that Christlieb was really frightened, and didn’t try again. Felix too, only wanting to take a closer look at the boy’s lovely sword, put out his hand to it, but the boy started screaming, “My sword, my sword, he wants to take my sword away!” And he ran to hide behind the thin man. Felix went very red in the face and said angrily, “I don’t want to take your sword away, you stupid boy!” He just muttered the last three words through his teeth, but Sir Thaddeus von Brakel had heard and seemed very embarrassed about it, because he kept fidgeting with the buttons of his waistcoat and saying, “Now, now, Felix!”
The plump lady said, “Adelgunde dear, Herrmann, the children won’t hurt you, don’t be so silly.” The thin man said, “They’ll soon get to know each other,” and then he took Lady von Brakel’s hand and led her into the house, followed by Sir Thaddeus with the plump lady, to whose skirts Adelgunde and Herrmann were clinging. Christlieb and Felix brought up the rear.
“Now they’ll cut the cake,” Felix whispered to his sister. “Oh yes, oh yes,” she replied happily. “And then we’ll run away out into the wood,” Felix went on. “And we won’t bother about these silly, peculiar children any more,” added Christlieb. Felix jumped for joy at that, and so they all went into the parlour.
Adelgunde and Herrmann weren’t allowed to eat cake, because they couldn’t digest it, their parents explained, so instead each of them had a small biscuit that the huntsman had to take out of a box they had brought with them. But Felix and Christlieb ate up the big slices of cake that their kind mother handed them, and felt happy and cheerful.
HOW THE DISTINGUISHED GUESTS SPENT THE REST OF THEIR VISIT
THE THIN MAN, WHOSE NAME was Cyprianus von Brakel, might have been Sir Thaddeus von Brakel’s cousin, but he was far more distinguished. For not only did he bear the title of count, he also wore a large silver star on every coat and jacket he had, even the dressing gown that he wore while his hair was being powdered. So when he had come to see his cousin Sir Thaddeus von Brakel a year earlier, without the plump lady who was his wife and without their children, for an hour’s conversation with him, Felix had asked, “Uncle, your lordship, have you been made king?” Felix had a picture of a king wearing a big star just like the Count’s in one of his books, so now he thought that as his uncle wore the same thing he must have become king.
At the time his uncle had laughed heartily at this, and replied, “No, my boy, I’m not the king, but I am the King’s faithful servant and a minister governing a great many people. And if you were one of the family of the Counts von Brakel, you too might wear a star like this some day, but as it is you belong to a less distinguished line of von Brakels and will never amount to anything much.” Felix didn’t really understand what his uncle was saying, and Sir Thaddeus said there was no need for him to understand it either.
Now, however, his uncle told his plump wife how Felix had taken him for the King, and she cried, “Oh, what sweet, touching simplicity!” And Felix and Christlieb had to come out of the corner where they had been giggling and laughing and eating their cake. Their mother immediately made sure that both their mouths were free of cake crumbs and bits of raisins, and took them over to his lordship their uncle and her ladyship their aunt, who cried out loud, “Such dear sweet children of nature! Such rustic innocence!” And the Count and his lady kissed the children and put large bags of something into their hands. Tears came to the eyes of Sir Thaddeus von Brakel and his wife over the kindness of their distinguished relations. Meanwhile Felix had opened his bag and found sweets in it. He started munching them up, and Christlieb immediately followed his example.
“My boy, my boy!” cried his lordship their uncle to Felix. “Munching sweets like that won’t do, you’ll break your teeth on them. You must suck your sweets slowly, let them dissolve in your mouth!”
That almost made Felix laugh out loud, and he said, “Oh, uncle, your lordship, do you think I’m just a little baby who has to suck because it doesn’t have good strong teeth to bite with yet?” And then he put another sweet in his mouth and munched and crunched it very noisily.
“Ah, sweet simplicity!” cried the plump lady again, and the children’s uncle joined in her amusement, but beads of sweat stood out on Sir Thaddeus’ brow. He was ashamed of Felix’s behaviour, and the boy’s mother whispered in his ear, “Don’t crunch them up like that, you naughty child!” Poor Felix, who wasn’t aware of doing anything wrong, was upset, and he took the sweet he hadn’t quite eaten out of his mouth, put it back in the bag with the rest, and handed the bag to his uncle, saying, “You’d better have your sweets back again, then, if I’m not supposed to eat them!” Christlieb, who was used to following Felix’s example in every
thing, did the same with her own bag of sweets.
This was too much for Sir Thaddeus. “My most honoured, my noble cousin,” he cried, “I beg you to make allowances for my poor simple boy’s foolishness, but it’s a fact that here in the country, living in such straitened circumstances … I mean to say, how can anyone here bring up such nicely mannered children as yours?”
Count Cyprianus smiled in a self-satisfied and extremely distinguished way as he looked at Herrmann and Adelgunde. They had long ago finished their biscuits, and were sitting perfectly still on their chairs without moving a muscle and without any expression on their faces. The plump lady was smiling too as she said, “Ah, my dear cousin, the education of our dear children is closer to our hearts than anything else.” She signed to Count Cyprianus, who immediately turned to Herrmann and Adelgunde and fired off a whole string of questions, which they answered with the utmost speed. They rattled off the strange names of a great many cities, rivers and mountains that apparently lay thousands of miles away, and they also knew exactly what the wild animals at the most distant points of the compass looked like. Then they talked about strange shrubs, trees and fruits as if they had seen them with their own eyes and even tasted the fruits themselves. Herrmann gave a precise description of what happened in a great battle fought three hundred years ago, and could name all the generals who had taken part in it. Finally Adelgunde even talked about the stars, and said there were all kinds of strange animals and other creatures up in the sky. That frightened Felix, and he went over to Lady von Brakel and asked quietly, “Oh, dear Mama, what is all this stuff they keep chattering and babbling about?”
“Hush, be quiet, you silly boy,” his mother whispered to him. “They are talking about the natural sciences!” And Felix said no more.
“Astonishing! Unheard of! At their tender age!” cried Sir Thaddeus von Brakel again and again, but his wife sighed, “Oh dear me! Oh, what little angels! Oh what’s to become of our own little ones out here in the countryside!” And when Sir Thaddeus joined in their mother’s lamentations, Count Cyprianus consoled them both by promising that in a little while he would send them a scholarly man to be tutor to their children and ask no fee for it.
Meanwhile the beautiful coach had driven round to the front of the house again, and the huntsman came in with two big boxes. Adelgunde and Herrmann took them and handed them to Christlieb and Felix. “Do you like toys, mon cher?” Herrmann asked Felix, bowing with great elegance. “I have brought you some playthings of the very finest quality!”
Felix was sad, even he did not know why, and looked downcast. He held the box, forgetting to thank Herrmann, and muttered, “I’m not monshair, my name is Felix.” Christlieb too was closer to tears than smiles, even though the sweetest of aromas, smelling like delicious things to eat, rose from the box that Adelgunde had given her. At the door Sultan, Felix’s beloved dog and faithful friend, was jumping up and barking, which scared Herrmann so much that he ran straight back into the parlour and began sobbing. “He won’t hurt you,” said Felix, “he won’t so much as touch you, why are you crying and howling like that? He’s only a dog, and you seem to have seen the most terrible animals in the wild! Even if he did happen to go for you, don’t you have a sword?”
But Felix’s words took no effect; Herrmann went on crying until the huntsman picked him up and carried him to the coach. Adelgunde, either moved by her brother’s grief or for some other reason, God knows what, also began crying and sobbing, which infected poor Christlieb so that she too began to sob and cry. Amidst all this howling and wailing from the three children, Count Cyprianus von Brakel drove away from Brakelheim, and so the visit from the more distinguished part of the family came to an end.
THE NEW TOYS
AS SOON AS THE COACH taking Count Cyprianus von Brakel and his family away had gone down the hill, Sir Thaddeus quickly tore off his green coat and red waistcoat, and as he equally quickly put on his comfortable frieze jacket and ran a wide-toothed comb two or three times through his hair, he stretched and said, “Thank God for that!” The children too took off their Sunday best, feeling happy and light at heart. “Off to the wood, off to the wood!” cried Felix, trying to see how high in the air he could jump.
“Don’t you want to see what Herrmann and Adelgunde have brought you first?” asked their mother. Christlieb, who had been eying the boxes with curiosity even as the Count and his family drove off, said yes, they could do that first, because there would still be time to go into the wood later. It was very hard to convince Felix, though. “What can that silly boy in his knickerbockers or his beribboned sister have brought us that would be any good?” he said. “As for those natural sciences, Cousin Knickerbockers may be able to reel off stuff about them, but first he tells us about lions and bears, says he knows how to catch elephants—and then he’s scared of my Sultan. He wears a sword, but he howls and bawls and hides under the table. What sort of a boy is that?”
“Oh, dear Felix, do let’s just open the boxes a tiny little bit!” begged Christlieb, and as Felix would do anything to please his sister he gave up the idea of going straight off to run around the wood, and sat down patiently with Christlieb at the table on which the boxes were standing. The children’s mother opened them and then—well, my dear readers, I am sure you have all had lots of lovely things as presents from your parents and other kind friends on the day of some delightful fair, or at Christmas. Think how you shouted for joy when you were surrounded by shiny toy soldiers, little mechanical men turning barrel organs, beautifully dressed dolls, delicate dolls’ tea sets, wonderful books of coloured pictures, and a great many other things. That was how Felix and Christlieb felt now, because a wealth of delightful, gleaming toys came out of the boxes, and so did all kinds of delicious things to eat, making the children clap their hands and cry, “Oh, how lovely!” But Felix looked at a bag of sweets scornfully, and when Christlieb begged him at least not to throw the shiny boiled sweets out of the window, as he was just about to do, he didn’t, but he still opened the window and threw several sweets to Sultan, who had come up to the house wagging his tail. Sultan sniffed the sweets, didn’t seem to like them, and pushed them away with his nose.
“There, you see, Christlieb,” said Felix triumphantly, “there, you see, even Sultan doesn’t like that nasty stuff.” But best of all the toys Felix liked a handsome huntsman who, if you pulled a little string coming down at the back of his jacket, raised his rifle and aimed at a target fitted three inches in front of him. Next best he liked a little clockwork man who could bow and play a tinkling tune on a harp if you wound him up. However, the very best of all were a shotgun and a hunting knife, both of them made of wood and painted silver, as well as a fine hussar’s cap and a cartridge pouch. Christlieb had a beautifully dressed doll and a full set of doll’s household utensils. The children forgot all about running in the woods and fields, and played with their toys until late in the evening, when they went to bed.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NEW TOYS IN THE WOOD
NEXT DAY THE CHILDREN began again where they had left off the evening before—that’s to say they fetched the boxes, took out their toys, and had a lovely time playing all sorts of games with them. The sun shone in through the windows, bright and kindly, just as it had shone yesterday; the birches whispered and murmured as the rustle of the morning wind greeted them; siskin, finch and nightingale rejoiced, singing the loveliest and happiest of songs. Then Felix, playing with his huntsman, his little clockwork harpist, and his gun and cartridge pouch, began to feel discontented.
“Oh, come on!” he suddenly cried. “It’s more fun out-of-doors after all. Come on, Christlieb, let’s go out into the wood.”
Christlieb had just undressed her big doll and was in the middle of dressing her again, and she was enjoying that, so she didn’t want to go out. “Dear Felix, why don’t we play here a little longer?” she said.
“I tell you what, Christlieb,” said Felix, “let’s take our best toys out with us. I’ll strap
on my hunting knife and sling the shotgun over my shoulder, and then I’ll look just like a huntsman. The little huntsman and the little harpist can come with me, and you can bring your big doll, Christlieb, and the best of her household utensils. Come on, do!”
Christlieb finished dressing the doll in a hurry, and then both children took their toys and went out into the wood, where they sat down in a beautiful green clearing. They had been there for some time, and Felix was just making the little harpist play a tune, when Christlieb said, “You know, Felix, I don’t think that little harpist of yours plays very well. His music sounds so ugly here in the wood, all that ting-ting-ping-ping, and the birds are watching from the bushes with such curiosity! It looks as if they can’t make anything of the way that silly musician tries to accompany their songs!”
Felix wound up the clockwork faster and faster, and finally cried, “You’re right, Christlieb! The music that the little man plays sounds horrible. And it’s no use for him to keep bowing to me like that! I’m really ashamed in front of the finch over there looking at me with such clever eyes. The harpist must play better! I want him to play better!” And so saying he wound the clockwork up harder and harder, until there was a loud crack, and the whole music box on which the harpist stood broke into a thousand pieces, and his arms fell off.
“Oh, oh!” cried Felix, and Christlieb exclaimed, “Oh, the little harpist!” Felix looked at the broken mechanism for a moment and then said, “Well, he was a stupid, silly fellow who played badly and made faces and bowed like Cousin Knickerbockers!” And he threw the harpist far away into the middle of the bushes. “I like my huntsman better,” he went on. “He shoots at the target every time!” And then Felix made the little huntsman do his trick again and again. After a while, however, Felix said, “But this is stupid, why does he always shoot at the target? As Papa says, that’s not right for a huntsman. He ought to be out in the woods shooting deer—stags—hares, hitting his mark while they run away! I won’t have him shooting at the target any more.” With those words, Felix broke off the target fixed in front of the huntsman. “Now, go on, you can shoot where you like,” he said, but whatever he did, however much he pulled the string, the little huntsman’s arms just hung limp. He didn’t raise his rifle to fire it any more. “Ha ha,” said Felix, “you could shoot at the target indoors, but not in the wood where a huntsman ought to feel at home. Are you afraid of dogs as well, and would you run away with your rifle if one came in, like Cousin Knickerbockers with his sword? You silly useless fellow!” So saying, Felix threw the huntsman after the harpist far into the bushes. “Come on, let’s have a good run!” he said to Christlieb.