To a great extent, amends were made by his attractive clothes, which suggested a man of taste and breeding. After all, he sported a very lovely, shiny, violet dolman with countless white braids and buttons. He also wore the loveliest trousers and finest ankle boots that had ever graced the feet of a student, much less an officer. These boots were as snug on the delicate little legs as if they were a perfect fit. Now it was funny that he had donned a miner’s cap and that he had accompanied his garb in back with a slim, clumsy cape that looked like wood.
Meanwhile, Marie felt that Godfather Drosselmeier had also slung an awful morning coat around his shoulders and put on a dreadful cap—but he was still a very dear godfather. Marie had likewise mused that no matter how delicate the little man, the godfather would never be as appealing as he. The little girl had instantly liked the nice man, and the more she looked at him, the more she realized what a gentle and kindly face he had. The light green, bulging eyes promised nothing but friendship and benevolence. It was good for the man to place a well-groomed, white-cotton beard on his chin, since you could perceive the sweet smile of the deep red lips all the more clearly.
“Ah!” Marie finally exclaimed. “Ah! Dear Father! Who owns that darling little man over on the tree there?”
“He,” the father answered. “He, dear child, should work hard for all of us. He should crack the hard nuts for us nicely. And he should belong to Luise as much as he belongs to you and to Fritz.”
The father then removed him cautiously from the table and, raising the wooden cape aloft, the manikin opened his mouth wide, wide, and showed two rows of very sharp, very tiny white teeth. When told to do so, Marie inserted a nut and—Crack! Crack!—he chewed up the nut, so that the shell dropped away, and the sweet kernel itself ended up in Marie’s hand.
By now, everyone, including Marie, had to know that the dainty little man was an offspring of the dynasty of Nutcrackers and was practicing his profession.
She shouted for joy, but then her father spoke:
“Since, dear Marie, you love Friend Nutcracker so much, you must shield and shelter him especially, even despite the fact that, as I have said, Luise and Fritz have as much right to use him as you!”
Marie promptly took Nutcracker in her arms and had him crack nuts, though she picked the smallest ones. That way the manikin wouldn’t have to open his mouth very wide, which basically didn’t look so good. Luise joined Marie, and Friend Nutcracker also had to perform his duties for Luise—which he didn’t seem to mind doing, since he smiled very amiably all the time.
Fritz, meanwhile, had grown tired from all the riding and drilling, and when he heard the pleasurable cracking of nuts, he sprang over to his sisters and roared with laughter at the quaint manikin. Now that Fritz also wanted to eat nuts, the little man passed from hand to hand, unable to halt his snapping open and shut. Fritz kept shoving in the biggest and hardest nuts. All at once, they heard a double crack. Then three little teeth fell out of Nutcracker’s mouth, and his whole lower jaw turned loose and wobbly.
“Oh, my poor, dear Nutcracker,” Marie exclaimed, whisking him out of Fritz’s hands.
“He’s a stupid, simpleminded guy!” said Fritz. “He wants to be a Nutcracker, but he has no decent teeth. He probably doesn’t understand his own work. Hand him over, Marie! He has to chew up nuts for me, even if he loses his remaining teeth—even his entire jaw in the bargain. Who cares about that good-for-nothing?!”
“No! No!” Marie wept. “You’re not going to get him—my dear Nutcracker! Just look at the way he watches me so sorrowfully and shows me his little, injured mouth! But you’re a coldhearted person, Fritz—you beat your horses and you even let a soldier be shot dead!”
“That’s the way it has to be, you just don’t understand,” cried Fritz. “Anyway, Nutcracker belongs to me as much as he belongs to you! Hand him over!!”
Marie began sobbing hard and she quickly wrapped up the sick Nutcracker in her tiny handkerchief. The parents came over with Godfather Drosselmeier, who, to Marie’s great regret, sided with Fritz.
However, her father said: “I deliberately placed Nutcracker under Marie’s protection. And now that I see she needs him, she has full power over Nutcracker with no interference from anyone. Incidentally, I’m very surprised that Fritz demands further services from somebody who has been injured in service. After all, as a good military man, he should know that wounded soldiers never line up in rank and file.”
Fritz was very ashamed and, without concerning himself any further about nuts and about Nutcracker, he stole over to the other side of the table. There, after setting the appropriate outposts, the Hussars had gone to their night quarters.
As for Marie, she hunted down Nutcracker’s little lost teeth. Around his wounded chin, she had wrapped a lovely white ribbon, which she had detached from her frock and bound up. The poor little man had looked very pale and frightened, and so Marie had wrapped him more gingerly than before in her cloth. Cradling him in her arms like a baby, she looked at the lovely pictures in the new picture book, which lay out today among all the other gifts.
Contrary to her usual behavior, Marie got quite angry when Godfather Drosselmeier kept laughing and asking how she managed to remain so lovely despite that thoroughly hideous manikin. Now she recalled the bizarre comparison she had drawn with Drosselmeier at first sight, and she spoke very earnestly:
“Who knows, dear Godfather, if you were spruced up like my dear Nutcracker, and if you had on such lovely, shiny ankle boots, who knows if you wouldn’t be as beautiful as he?”
Marie couldn’t tell why her parents laughed so loudly and why Supreme Court Counselor developed a red nose and didn’t laugh as clearly as before. There must have been a special reason.
Marvels
When you step through the door, into the home of the medical counselor, you’ll find a tall glass cabinet on the broad wall to your left. The shelves store all the lovely presents that are given to the children every year. Luise was still very little when her father ordered the cabinet from a very skillful cabinetmaker. The man inserted the panes so brightly—indeed, he knew how to equip the entire showcase so adroitly that everything inside looked almost shinier and lovelier than if you were holding it yourself.
The top shelf, unattainable for Marie and Fritz, held Drosselmeier’s artworks. Right below was the shelf for the picture books. The two lowest shelves could be filled by Marie and Fritz, however they wished. But usually, Marie assigned the bottom shelf for her dolls to live on, while, on the shelf overhead, Fritz drove his troops into the cantonments.
The same thing had happened today. While Fritz had stationed his Hussars overhead, Marie had put Fräulein Trutchen aside, had placed the new and spruced-up doll in the very elegantly appointed room, and had invited herself to some delicious confectionary with Marie.
The room was appointed very elegantly—so I’ve said, and it’s also true. For I don’t know if you, my attentive reader Marie, like little Miss Stahlbaum (you already know that she too is called Marie), ah! I wonder if the little girl has a small, lovely, flowery sofa like this Marie. Do they have several darling little chairs, a dainty tea table—and above all, a little spic-and-span bed, where the prettiest dolls rest?
All these things were in the corner of the cabinet, whose walls were papered here with little parti-colored pictures. And you can imagine that the new doll, who, as Marie learned that same evening, was named Fräulein Clärchen, had to feel very wonderful in this room.
It was late evening—indeed, midnight was approaching, and Drosselmeier had long since gone home. However, Marie and Fritz still couldn’t leave the glass cabinet, no matter how much their mother kept ordering them to finally get to bed.
“It’s true!” Fritz exclaimed at last. “Those poor guys!” (He meant his Hussars!) “They want to have their rest too. And so long as I’m here, no one dares to catch forty winks—I already know that!”
Fritz left, but Marie begged and begged: “Just a we
e bit longer—please, dear Mother, let me stay just a wee bit longer. I have to take care of a few things. When I’m done, I’ll go straight to bed!”
Marie was a devout and reasonable child, and so her good mother had no qualms about leaving her alone with her toys.
Still, her mother wanted to keep Marie from being all too deeply tempted by the new doll and the lovely playthings. Forgetting about the candles burning all around the wall closet, the mother snuffed all of them, so that only the lamp suspended in the middle of the ceiling spread a gentle, graceful light.
“Come in soon, dear Marie! Otherwise you won’t get up at the right time tomorrow!” exclaimed the mother, withdrawing into the bedroom.
As soon as Marie was alone, she quickly went over to do what was quite properly on her mind and what she could not tell her mother, though she did not know why. Marie still had the wounded Nutcracker wrapped in her handkerchief, and she carried him in her arms.
Now she placed him cautiously on the table, unwrapped him softly, softly, and tended to the injuries. Nutcracker was very pale, but he beamed so ruefully and amiably that his smile shot right through her heart.
“Ah, dear little Nutcracker,” she murmured very softly. “Please don’t be angry at me because my brother Fritz hurt you so deeply. He didn’t really mean it so badly. He’s just gotten a bit hard-hearted in the wild military. Otherwise, he’s a truly fine boy—you can count on it.
“But now I want to nurse you very tenderly until you’re fully sound and cheery again. As for reinserting your little teeth thoroughly and properly and straightening out your shoulders, Godfather Drosselmeier can take care of all that—he’s an expert in such matters.”
However, Marie could not finish. For when she pronounced Drosselmeier’s name, Friend Nutcracker’s face twisted up devilishly, and his eyes virtually emitted sparkling green prickles. But the moment Marie tried to get properly released, she was again viewed by the mournfully smiling face of honest Nutcracker. And now she knew that it was the draft and the quickly blazing ray of the lamp that had totally distorted his features.
“Aren’t I a silly little girl—scared so easily that I even believe this little wooden doll can make faces? Still, I care so much for Nutcracker because he’s so funny, and yet so kind, and that’s why he has to be nursed as is proper!”
Marie now took Friend Nutcracker by the arm, went over to the glass cabinet, huddled in front of it, and spoke to the new doll: “Please, pretty please, Fräulein Clärchen, please give up my little bed for sick, wounded Nutcracker, and make do with the sofa as best you can. Don’t forget that you’re very healthy and powerful. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have such thick dark red cheeks. And don’t forget that very few of the most gorgeous dolls own such soft couches.”
In her full, shiny Christmas garb, Fräulein Clärchen looked very noble and very angry, and she didn’t breathe a word.
“Now, why am I making such a fuss?” said Marie.
She pulled out the bed, tucked dear Nutcracker in very gently and delicately, and wrapped him up with a beautiful little ribbon. She normally wrapped the ribbon around her body; however, this time, she wrapped it around his injured shoulders and covered him all the way up to her nose.
“But he mustn’t remain with naughty Clärchen,” Marie went on. She pulled up the little bed together with Nutcracker (who was lying on it) and she placed them on the top shelf. In this way, the little bed lay right next to the lovely village where Fritz’s Hussars were billeted.
Marie locked the cabinet and was about to go into the bedroom, when—now listen, children!—when she caught a soft, soft whispering and murmuring and rustling all around, behind the oven, behind the chairs, behind the cabinets. The wall clock hummed louder and louder, but it couldn’t strike.
Marie looked up. The big, gilded owl perching on the clock had lowered its wings, covering the whole timepiece and poking forth the ugly cobblestone with the hooked nose. And the noises grew louder, and words could be made out: “Clock, tick, tock, clock, tick, tock! And everyone has to hum softly, hum softly. After all, Mouse King has a fine ear.
“Hummmmm, hummmmmm, hummmmmm. Strike, chime, do / Soon there will be few!”
And the humming resounded dull and hoarse twelve times!
Marie shuddered dreadfully and she would almost have dashed off in horror if she had not spotted Godfather Drosselmeier, who sat on the wall clock in lieu of the owl, his yellow coattails dangling like wings on both sides.
However, Marie pulled herself together and she exclaimed, loudly and tearfully:
“Godfather Drosselmeier, Godfather Drosselmeier, what are you doing up there? Come down to me and stop frightening me, you nasty Godfather Drosselmeier!”
However, now a wild giggling and whistling started all around and virtually a thousand little feet were trotting and scurrying behind the walls and virtually a thousand little candle stubs were flickering through the cracks in the floorboards. Still these weren’t candle stubs, no! These were tiny, sparkling eyes. And Marie realized that mice were peering out and preparing themselves everywhere.
Soon the room reverberated with trot, trot, and hop, hop, brighter and denser squads of mice were galloping to and fro and they finally lined up in rank and file, the way Fritz stationed his soldiers before a battle.
Marie found this very funny, and, unlike some other children, she didn’t have a natural aversion to mice. Indeed, she was about to shed any terror she might have felt, when all at once the room began to whistle so sharply and so outrageously that she had to shudder! Ah, what did she notice now?
No, truly, my honored reader Fritz, I know that your heart is in the right place, just like the heart of the wise and bold General Fritz Stahlbaum. But if you had seen what Marie now saw, you would have truly dashed away. I even feel that you would have leaped into bed and pulled the cover much farther over your ears than necessary.
Ah! Poor Marie could not do even that. For just listen, children. Right at her feet, as if driven by subterranean force, the ground spurted out sand and lime and crumbling wall stones, and seven mouse heads with seven brightly sparkling crowns loomed high from the ground, hissing and whistling quite unbearably.
Soon the mouse body, to whose neck the seven heads were attached, likewise worked its way out completely, and the large mouse, adorned with seven diadems, exulted in its full chorus. Squeaking loudly three times, the mouse faced the entire army, which suddenly got moving. Hott, hott, trott, trott, it headed straight toward the cabinet, ah, straight toward Marie, who was standing right up against the glass door.
Marie’s heart had beaten so loudly in fear and terror that she thought it might burst out of her chest, and she would then have to die. But now she felt as if the blood were frozen in her veins. Half fainting, she staggered backward, hearing klirr, klirr, purr, purr, and the glass pane of the cabinet, elbowed by Marie, collapsed in fragments.
At that moment, Marie did feel a truly sharp pain in her left arm, but her heart suddenly felt much lighter. She now heard no squeaking or piping; everything was very still. And even though she didn’t care to have a look, she did believe that the mice, frightened by the tinkling of the glass shards, had retreated to their own holes.
But just what was that?
Right behind Marie, strange noises were now heard from the cabinet, and very fine voices resounded: “Wake up, wake up, to the battle this very night! Wake up, wake up to the battle!” And harmonious chimes jingled sweetly and gracefully.
“Ah! That’s my little glockenspiel,” cried Marie, jumping aside.
Now she saw a bizarre lighting in the cabinet, a puttering and fiddling around. There were several dolls, hurrying and scurrying about, and fighting with their skinny arms.
All at once, Nutcracker sat up, flung the cover far away, and leaped out of bed with both feet, shouting: “Crack, crack, crack! Foolish mice pack! Crick, crack, real sack!” And with that, Nutcracker drew his little sword and waved it in the air and cried: “You, my
dear friends and vassals and brothers, do you wish to help me in the hard struggle?”
Three Scaramouches promptly retorted, as did one Pantaloon, four chimney sweeps, two zitherists, and one drummer: “Yessir, we submit to you in steadfast devotion, and we march with you into death, struggle, and victory!”
And they followed the passionate Nutcracker, who dared to make the perilous leap from the top shelf. It was no use their jumping. For not only did they wear rich garments of cloth and silk, but there wasn’t much more inside them than chaff and cotton. That was why they plopped down like sacks of wool.
Poor Nutcracker would certainly have broken his arms and his legs. For—just imagine—it was nearly two feet high above the shelf where he was standing until the bottom, and his body was as brittle as if carved out of linden wood. Yes indeed! Nutcracker would have certainly broken his arms and his legs if, in the moment of his leap, Fräulein Clärchen had not also jumped from the sofa and caught the hero’s drawn sword in her soft arms.
“Ah, you dear, sweet Clärchen!” Marie sobbed. “How I misunderstood you! You would have certainly been glad to give up your little bed to Friend Nutcracker!”
But now Fräulein Clärchen spoke, pressing the young hero gently against her silken breast: “If you do not wish, oh lord, sick and wounded as you are, to join the struggle and the peril, then see how your courageous vassals, belligerent and certain of victory, gather together. Scaramouch, Pantaloon, Chimney Sweep, Zitherist, and Drummer are already downstairs. And the coat-of-arms figures on my shelf actually throb and thump noticeably! You may wish, sir, to rest in my arms or watch your victory from my plumed hat!”
Those were Clärchen’s words. But Nutcracker was so very unruly and he kicked so hard that Clärchen had to drop him on the floor. However, at that instant, Nutcracker knelt down politely on one knee and whispered:
“Oh, my lady, I will remember you in charm and grace while I tussle and struggle!”
Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker Page 5