Now the king spoke very amiably to the queen: “You know, my darling, how much I love sausages!”
The queen knew what the king was driving at. He meant simply that she ought to submit to the very useful business of making sausages, as she herself had done in the past.
The supreme treasurer had to promptly deliver the huge golden sausage cauldron and the silver casseroles to the kitchen. They lit a big sandalwood fire, the queen tied on her damask kitchen apron, and soon the sweet fragrances of the sausage soup were steaming out of the cauldron. The pungent aroma wafted all the way to the Privy Council. The king, imbued with pleasure, couldn’t help himself: “With your permission, gentlemen!” he shouted. He then flew into the kitchen, embraced the queen, stirred the soup with his gold scepter, and, calming down, he returned to the Privy Council.
They had reached the important point when the bacon was to be sliced into cubes and roasted on silver grills. The ladies-in-waiting left the kitchen because the queen wished to perform this action herself out of loyalty, fidelity, and devotion to the royal consort. However, when the bacon started to roast, they heard a very fine whispering: “Give me a little roast bacon, too, sister! I want to feast, too—after all, I’m a queen, too. Give me a bit of the roast bacon!”
The queen knew that Frau Mouserink was speaking. For many years now, she had been living in the royal palace. She claimed that she was related to the royal family, and that she herself was a queen in the land of Mousolia. And that was why she presided over a large court under the hearth. The queen was a good, charitable woman. If she didn’t wish to recognize Frau Mouserink as queen and as her sister, then she could at least grant her, from the bottom of her heart, the banqueting on festive days. The queen exclaimed: “Come right out, Frau Mouserink. You can enjoy my bacon in any event!”
Frau Mouserink scurried over, hopping merrily. She leaped up to the hearth, and her delicate little paws took hold of each bit of bacon offered her by the queen.
But now all of Frau Mouserink’s male and female relatives came springing up, as did her seven sons. These sons were ill-bred boors. They overwhelmed the bacon, and the terrified queen couldn’t fend them off. Luckily the royal controller’s wife came running up. She drove away the intrusive guests, managing to leave some bacon, which, following the assessment of the royal mathematician, was distributed very skillfully among all the sausages.
With drums beating and trumpets blasting, all the visiting princes and potentates, clad in splendid holiday garb, drew past, heading toward the sausage feast, whereby some of the guests were mounted on white amblers, and some rode in crystal coaches. The king welcomed them with hearty friendship and benevolence; then, as sovereign, with his crown and his scepter, he sat down at the head of the table.
In the liverwurst station, people could see that the king was turning paler and paler, gazing at the heavens. Gentle moans fled his breast, a tremendous pain seemed to be burrowing through his insides! Then, in the blood sausage station, loudly groaning and groaning, weeping and wailing, he sank back in his armchair, with both hands over his face.
All the diners sprang up from the table, and the royal physician tried in vain to check the royal pulse—the king seemed to be ripped apart by a profound and nameless yowling. Finally, finally, after much coaxing, after the application of strong medicines, more than there were scorched quills, and so forth, the king seemed to have recovered somewhat. He barely stammered the words: “Too little bacon.”
The queen now pathetically threw herself at his feet and cried out: “Oh, my poor, miserable royal consort! Oh, what pains you have suffered. But now you see the culprit at your feet! Punish, punish her hard! Ah, Frau Mouserink, with her seven sons and with all her male and female relatives, has gobbled up the bacon and—” But now the queen fell back in a dead faint.
The king furiously leaped up and yelled: “Royal controller’s wife! How did it happen?”
The controller’s wife reported whatever she knew, and the king resolved to get even with Frau Mouserink and her family for gobbling away the bacon from the sausages. The Privy Council assembled, and it decided to put Frau Mouserink on trial and to confiscate all her goods. However, the king pointed out that she could, after all, still gobble up the bacon during the procedure. So the entire matter was handed over to the royal clockmaker and the royal adept.
This man, who had the same name as I—namely, Christian Elias Drosselmeier—promised, through a very special, politically shrewd operation, to drive Frau Mouserink and her family out of the palace forever and ever. Drosselmeier actually invented very tiny, very skillful devices, in which roast bacon was applied to minuscule threads that Drosselmeier set up around the home of Frau Bacongobbler.
Frau Mouserink was far too wise not to catch Drosselmeier’s cunning. But none of her warnings, none of her notions could help. Lured by the sweet fragrance of the roast bacon, all of Frau Mouserink’s seven sons and many, many male and female relatives stepped into Drosselmeier’s devices; and just as they were about to nibble away the bacon, they were trapped by a suddenly dropping gate and then shamefully executed right in the kitchen.
With her tiny squad, Frau Mouserink abandoned the site of terror. Grief, despair, and revenge imbued her breast. The court rejoiced heartily, but the queen was worried, for she was well acquainted with Frau Mouserink’s mentality and she knew that Frau Mouserink would not leave the deaths of her sons and relatives unavenged. And indeed, Frau Mouserink did appear just as the queen was preparing a lung puree for the royal consort—a treat he especially liked. And Frau Mouserink said:
“My sons, my relatives have been killed. Be careful, Your Royal Highness, make sure that Mouse Queen doesn’t chew the little princess in half—make sure.”
Thereupon she vanished again and was seen no more. But the queen was so terrified that she dropped the lung puree into the fire; and so Frau Mouserink spoiled a second royal treat, which infuriated the king.
“But that’s enough for Fritz and Marie tonight. The rest will be taken care of tomorrow.”
Marie had her own thoughts in regard to the story, and much as she asked Godfather Drosselmeier to keep going, she didn’t wait to be persuaded. Instead, she jumped up: “Too much of a good thing is unhealthy—we’ll hear the final part of the story tomorrow.”
Just as the counselor was about to step out the front door, Fritz asked:
“Do tell me, Godfather Drosselmeier, is it really true that you invented the mousetrap?”
“How can you ask such a silly question?” the mother cried. But the godfather smiled inscrutably and he murmured: “Am I not enough of a skillful clockmaker and not even enough to invent mousetraps?”
Continuation of the Tale of the Hard Nut
Now you know very well, children (Drosselmeier continued the next evening), you know very well why the queen had the gorgeous Princess Pirlipat guarded so carefully. Shouldn’t the queen fear that Frau Mouserink might carry out her threats, come back, and chew the little princess to death? Drosselmeier’s devices were useless against Frau Mouserink’s wisdom and insight; and only the royal astronomer, who also doubled as the king’s secret diviner and stargazer, appeared to know that only the family of Tomcat Purr would be able to keep Frau Mouserink away from the cradle of the princess. Hence it happened that each lady-in-waiting held one of the sons of that family in her lap, deftly stroking him, trying to sweeten his vast political service. Incidentally, the sons were employed at court as secret legation counsels.
One midnight, one of the two ladies sitting close to the cradle awoke out of deep sleep. Everybody around them lay there, trapped by slumber—no purring, a deep and deathly hush, in which the picking of the woodworm could be heard! But how did the secret supreme lady-in-waiting feel when she spotted a huge, hideous mouse, which stood up on its hind legs, pressing its wretched face against the head of the princess?
With a shriek of dismay, the lady jumped up. Everybody awoke. That same moment, Frau Mouserink (nobody els
e was the big mouse on Pirlipat’s cradle) scurried into a corner of the room. The legation counsels dashed after her. But too late. Frau Mouserink vanished through a crack in the floor.
Pirlipat was awakened by the uproar and she wept very lamentably. “Thank goodness!” the ladies exclaimed. “She’s alive!”
But how great was their horror when they looked for Pirlipat and saw what had become of the lovely, delicate child. Instead of her golden locks with a red and white face and an angelic head, a thick, deformed head now perched on a twisted, teensy-weensy body. The small azure eyes had turned into green, gaping, gawking eyes, and the little lips had pulled from one ear to the other.
The queen dissolved in weeping and wailing, and the royal study had to be thoroughly padded because time after time the king would run with his head against the wall, shouting lamentably: “Oh, what a miserable monarch I am!”
The king realized perfectly well that it would have been better to eat the sausages without bacon and leave Frau Mouserink and her clan in peace behind the hearth. But Pirlipat’s royal father wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, he placed all the blame on the royal clockmaker and adept, Christian Elias Drosselmeier from Nuremberg. That was why the king issued a wise order: Drosselmeier had four weeks to restore Princess Pirlipat to her former condition or at least indicate a specific, unerring measure for doing so. Otherwise, the royal clockmaker would be doomed to a shameful death under the headsman’s ax.
Drosselmeier was not without fear, but he relied on his skill and his luck, and he promptly tackled the first operation that struck him as useful. He took Princess Pirlipat apart very adroitly, unscrewed her little hands and feet, and viewed her inner structure. But, alas, he found that the bigger the princess grew, the more shapeless she became, and he was at a loss—at his wit’s end. He very carefully put her together again and sank into a melancholy at her cradle, which he was not allowed to leave.
The fourth week had already begun. It was Wednesday when the king peered into the cradle, his eyes sparkling furiously. Brandishing his scepter, the king exclaimed: “Christian Elias Drosselmeier, cure the princess, or you must die!” Drosselmeier started weeping bitterly, but the princess delightfully cracked nuts.
For the first time, Drosselmeier noticed that Pirlipat had been born with teeth and that she had an unusual appetite for nuts. Indeed, she had hollered so long after her transformation, until a nut happened to come her way. She promptly cracked it open, ate the kernel, and then calmed down. Since then, the ladies couldn’t bring her enough nuts.
“Oh, holy instinct of nature, eternally inscrutable sympathy of all beings,” cried Christian Elias Drosselmeier, “you show me the gates to the mystery. I wish to knock, and the gates will open.”
Drosselmeier then asked for permission to speak to the court astronomer, and he was taken to him under heavy guard. These two gentlemen embraced tearfully because they were close friends. Next they withdrew into a secret study, where they perused many books dealing with instincts, sympathies, antipathies, and other mysterious things.
Night broke in. The court astronomer gazed at the stars and, with the help of the very dexterous Drosselmeier, he cast the princess’s horoscope. This demanded great effort, for the lines got more and more entangled. But finally—what joy. Finally it lay clearly before them that the princess, in order to undo the hideous spell and restore her beauty, had nothing to do but enjoy the sweet Krakatuk Nut.
The shell of the Krakatuk Nut was so hard that a forty-eight-pound cannon could have charged across it without breaking it. But this hard nut had to be chewed up in front of the princess by a man who had never shaved and who had never worn boots. And with closed eyes, he handed the princess the kernel. The young man could reopen his eyes only after taking seven steps backward without stumbling.
Drosselmeier and the astronomer labored uninterruptedly for three days and three nights. Now the king was having his Saturday dinner. All at once, Drosselmeier, who was to be decapitated on Sunday, at the crack of dawn, burst in joyfully and ecstatically and he announced the measure for restoring the princess’s lost beauty. The king hugged Drosselmeier with intense benevolence and promised him a diamond sword, four medals, and two new Sunday coats.
“After we finish our meal,” the king added amiably, “we can get to work right away. Make sure, dear adept, that the young unshaven and nonbooted man with the Krakatuk Nut is properly at hand. He should drink no wine earlier; otherwise he’ll stumble when he tries taking seven steps backward like a crab. Afterward he can liquor up for all he’s worth!”
Drosselmeier was stunned by the king’s words, and it was not without shaking and shuddering that he managed to squeeze out a response: he had discovered the measure. Now both the Krakatuk Nut and the young man had to be sought. But it remained doubtful whether Nut and Nutcracker could ever be found.
The fuming sovereign swung his scepter over his crowned head and he roared in a lion’s voice: “Then we’ll make do with your heads!”
Luckily for Drosselmeier, who was filled with terror and misery, the king had found his meal to be delicious that very day. So he was in the right mood to listen to reasonable ideas, of which the magnanimous queen had no lack. Indeed, she was deeply touched by Drosselmeier’s fate. Drosselmeier pulled himself together and finally pointed out that he had gained his life by actually carrying out the king’s orders. He had been told to find the means of curing the princess and he had done so.
The king called these lame excuses and silly twaddle. But eventually, after drinking a glass of digestive, he decided that both the clockmaker and the astronomer should get going and should not return without a Krakatuk Nut in their pocket. The man who bit them open should, as the queen informed them, insert multiple public notices and various advertisements in domestic and foreign gazettes.
Drosselmeier broke off here and he promised to finish the story tomorrow evening.
Conclusion of the Tale of the Hard Nut
No sooner were the lights lit on the following evening than Godfather Drosselmeier actually showed up and continued the story.
Drosselmeier and the court astronomer had been roaming for fifteen years already without catching even a hint of the Krakatuk Nut. Now I could spend four whole weeks telling you, dear children, where they had been and what strange things they had encountered. But I won’t report on those matters. I’ll merely say that in his deep sorrow, Drosselmeier eventually felt deeply homesick for his dear hometown of Nuremberg. This yearning swept over him especially one day when he and his friend happened to be in a vast, Asian forest, smoking pipes filled with cheap tobacco.
“Oh, beautiful, beautiful hometown of Nuremberg—beautiful town. If a person hasn’t seen you, even though he may have traveled a lot, to London, Paris, Petrovaradin, then his heart cannot have surged. He must long for you always, long for you, oh, Nuremberg, beautiful town with its beautiful houses and windows.”
When Drosselmeier lamented so dolefully, the astronomer was filled with profound commiseration, and he started to bawl so deplorably that his weeping and wailing could be heard all over Asia. But then he pulled himself together, wiped the tears from his eyes, and asked:
“Worthy colleague, why do we sit here and blubber? Why don’t we go to Nuremberg? Does it really matter where and how we seek the wretched Krakatuk Nut?”
“That’s true,” Drosselmeier replied in comfort.
The two men stood up, knocked the tobacco from their pipes, and headed straight out of the Asian forest toward Nuremberg. No sooner had they arrived, than Drosselmeier hurried over to visit his cousin, the doll maker, lacquerer, and gilder Christoph Zacharias Drosselmeier, whom he hadn’t seen for many, many years.
The clockmaker told his cousin the entire story about Princess Pirlipat, Frau Mouserink, and the Krakatuk Nut. Time and again, the cousin threw his hands together and cried out in amazement: “Oh, cousin, cousin, what wondrous things these are!”
Drosselmeier kept talking about his adventures on h
is vast travels. He had spent two years with the date king, had been disdainfully rejected by the almond prince, and had inquired in vain at the Nature Society in Eichhornshausen. In short, the clockmaker had failed everywhere to find even a trace of the Krakatuk Nut.
During this account, Christoph Zacharias had often snapped his fingers, whirled around on one foot, clicked his tongue, and cried out: “Hm, hm, I, Ei, O—the devil take it!” Finally, he threw his cap and his wig into the air, and hugged and squeezed the cousin. “Cousin, cousin! You are safe and you are sound, I tell you, for everything and everyone must be deceiving me if I don’t own the Krakatuk Nut myself!”
He then produced a box, from which he drew a gilt nut of medium size. “Look,” he said, showing the nut to his cousin. “Look! Let me tell you about this nut.”
Many Christmases ago, a stranger came here, peddling a sack of nuts. Unfortunately, he got into a fight with the local nut dealer right outside my doll’s cottage; so he put down his sack in order to defend himself more easily. The resident attacked the stranger because he couldn’t stand having the outsider hawk nuts. At that moment, a heavily loaded truck rolled over the sack, crushing all the nuts but one, which the stranger, with a bizarre smile, offered me for a shiny twenty-penny piece from the year 1720. This struck me as wonderful. Now I happened to have such a coin in my pocket. I bought the nut and gilded it, not quite knowing why I had paid so much and why I now held the nut in such high esteem.
This was definitely the Krakatuk Nut that they had been hunting; any doubts were dispelled when they summoned the astronomer, and he scraped the gilt cleanly off with the coin. Under the gilt, they found the word “Krakatuk” engraved in Chinese characters.
Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker Page 7