Nutcracker and the mouse king

ice that the summit of one great tower was wholly missing, which a gang of small manikins, standing on a scaffold of cinnamon sticks, seemed engaged in restoring. Even before she could ask Nutcracker the meaning of this, he went on:
“A short time ago this fine castle was exposed to serious danger, if not utter destruction. The Giant Guzzle, happening to pass by, hit one tower right off, and was already gnawing at the great dome when the Confectionerbury people brought him a whole quarter of their city as tribute, and a good slice of Jamshire as well, with which he consented to be fed off, and went on his way.”
At this moment a soft pleasing strain of music was heard, the gate of the castle opened, and out stepped twelve small pages bearing lighted cloves in their hands by way of torches. Their heads consisted of a single pearl, their bodies of rubies and emeralds, and so they walked along very fine upon little feet of pure gold. They were followed by four ladies, almost as large as Mary`s doll Clara, but so extraordinarily majestic and gorgeously arrayed, that not for a single moment could Mary mistake them for anything but born Princesses.
“Oh; my Prince! – oh, my dear Prince! – oh, my brother!” they exclaimed, embracing Nutcracker in the tenderest manner, and one could not be sure whether they were about to laugh or to cry for joy.
Nutcracker seemed to be much moved; he wiped away a crowd of tears from his eyes, took Mary by the hand, and spoke movingly:
“This is Miss Mary Stahlbaum, the daughter of a most respectable physician, and the preserver of my life. Had she not thrown her slipper at the right time, had she not furnished me with the sword of the pensioned cuirassier colonel, I should now be lying in my grave, bitten to pieces by the accursed Mouse King. Oh, this Miss Stahlbaum! Tell me, is Pirlipat, even though a Princess by birth, her equal in beauty, heart, and virtue? No! I say – no!”
“No!” cried all the ladies, and fell upon Mary`s neck, sobbing out, “Oh, you noble preserver of our dear princely brother – excellent Miss Stahlbaum!”
Now the ladies led Mary and Nutcracker within the castle, and into a hall, the walls of which were of clear sparkling and glowing crystal. But what pleased Mary above all the rest was the dearest little chairs, tables, sofas, and so forth, standing round about, which were made of cedar or mahogany wood, inlaid with gold flowers. The Princesses requested Mary and Nutcracker to sit down, and said that they themselves would at once get a meal ready. Then they brought out a number of little pots and dishes made of the finest japan porcelain, also spoons, knives, and forks, graters, stew-pans, and other kitchen utensils of gold and silver.
Next they brought out the most beautiful fruits and sugar stuffs, such as Mary had never seen, and, in the most elegant manner, with their small snow-white hands, began to peel the fruit, to pound the spices, to rub down the sugar-sticks, in short, so to play the housewife that Mary could well see how these Princesses were at home in the kitchen, and what a rich meal was to be set before her.
Feeling conscious that she could show herself mistress of such matters, she secretly wished the Princesses would let her assist in their work. As if she had guessed Mary`s wish, the most beautiful of Nutcracker`s sisters reached over to her a small gold mortar, with the words:
“Oh, sweet friend, dear preserver of my brother, please break a little bit off this sugar-stick!”
While Mary now pounded away at the mortar so heartily that it sounded quite pleasant, as if a pretty tune were being chimed forth, Nutcracker began to relate in full how the grim battle between his army and the Mouse King`s had gone, how he had been beaten through the cowardice of his troops, how then the hateful Mouse King would have bitten him all to pieces, and how, therefore, Mary had been obliged to sacrifice many of his subjects, persons in her service, etc. etc. During this narrative it seemed to Mary as if his words, even her own strokes in the mortar, grew fainter and stranger; soon she saw the silver floor rising up like thin clouds of mist, in which floated the Princesses, the pages, Nutcracker, her own self – her ears were filled with a queer singing and ringing and burning that died away in the distance. Now she rose upon swelling waves higher and higher – higher and higher – higher and higher-!
CHAPTER XIV
CONCLUSION
P-r-r-puff! Down fell Mary from a measureless height. That was a fall! But at once she opened her eyes, and there she lay on her little bed, in clear daylight, and her mother stood beside her, saying:
“How can you sleep so long? Breakfast has been ready long ago!”
You take notice, honoured reader, that Mary, quite bewildered by all the wonderful things she saw, had at last fallen asleep in the hall of Rock Castle, and that the black boys, or the pages, or the Princesses, with their own hands, must have brought her home and put her to bed.
“Oh, mother, dear mother, wherever has young Herr Drosselmeier taken me through the night? What fine things I have seen!”
Then she told the whole story almost exactly as I have just told it, and her mother looked at her in amazement.
“Dear Mary,” said her mother, when she came to an end, “you have had a long, beautiful dream, but now shake all that out of your head.”
Mary obstinately stuck to it that she had not been dreaming, but had really seen all this. So her mother took her to the glass cupboard, brought down Nutcracker from the third shelf where he stood as usual, and said: “How can you, silly child, believe that these wooden figures from Nuremberg are alive and able to move of themselves?”
“But, dear mother,” broke in Mary, “I know very well that the small Nutcracker is young Herr Drosselmeier of Nuremberg, Godfather Drosselmeier`s nephew.”
At this both her father and mother broke into a loud peal of laughter.
“Ah,” Mary went on, almost in tears, “now you are laughing at my Nutcracker, dear father; and yet he spoke so well of you, for when we came to Rock Castle, and he introduced me to the Princesses, his sisters, he said you were a very respectable physician!”
Louder still was the laughter, in which Louisa joined, and even Fred. Then Mary ran into the next room, made haste to bring out of her small treasure-box the seven crowns of the Mouse King, and handed them to her mother, with:
“Just see there – these are the Mouse King`s seven crowns, which last night young Drosselmeier presented to me as tokens of his victory.”
With astonishment the doctor`s wife examined the little crowns, which were so skillfully made out of a very bright metal quite unfamiliar to her, that they seemed the work of no human hands. The Doctor, too, took a good long look at them, and both father and mother seriously urged Mary to confess how she had come by these crowns. But she would only stand by what she had said; and when her father grew stern with her, even scolded her as a little story-teller, she began to cry bitterly, and to lament:
“Ah, poor child that I am, what else can I say?”
At that moment the door opened. In walked the Counsellor, calling out:
“What`s the matter? My godchild Mary crying and sobbing! What`s the matter? What`s the matter?” The Doctor told him the whole story, showing him the little crowns.
No sooner had the Counsellor set eyes on them than he laughed, and said:
“Silly stuff! silly stuff! These are the charms which long ago I used to wear on my watch-chain, and I gave them to Mary as a present on her birthday when she was two years old. Didn`t you know them again?”
Neither the Doctor nor his wife remembered them; but when Mary saw that the faces of her parents had become friendly again, she sprang upon Godfather Drosselmeier with the cry:
“Ah, Godfather, you know all about it; do tell them yourself that my Nutcracker is your nephew, the young Herr Drosselmeier from Nuremberg, and that he gave me the little crowns!”
“Stupid, silly stuff!” muttered the Counsellor, making an ugly face.
Then her mother made Mary stand before her, and spoke very seriously:
“Just listen to me, Mary; you must have done with all these fancies and absurdities; and if you say again that this common misshaped Nutcracker is the nephew of Mr. Counsellor, I will not only throw Nutcracker out of the window, but also all the rest of your toys, Missy Clara too.”
Now, indeed, poor Mary could no longer speak of that which filled her whole mind; for you may well suppose that such splendid and beautiful things as had happened to her are not to be forgotten. Even Fred turned his back on her when she tried to tell him of the wonderful land in which she had been so fortunate. He is said even to have whispered “Silly goose!” at her; but the good nature he showed at other times will not let me believe this. Yet so much is certain, that, since he no longer put any faith in Mary`s story, be formally, on open parade, retracted the wrong done to his hussars, gave them, instead of their lost cockades, much higher and finer feathers from a goose-quill, and permitted them to play the Hussar-Guards` March again. Well, we know what courage these hussars had shown when the mouse balls came whistling at their red waistcoats!
Mary might speak no more of her adventure; but that marvellous fairy kingdom still hovered round her in sweetly fleeting visions and beautiful echoes; she saw all its glories once more as soon as she fixed her mind on the remembrance of them. And so it came about that, instead of playing as she used to do, she would sit still and silent, her thoughts far away, till everybody found fault with her for a little dreamer.
It happened that, as the Counsellor was one day mending a clock in her father`s house, Mary sat before the glass cupboard, deep in her dreams, looking at Nutcracker, and she could not help bursting out aloud:
“Ah, dear Herr Drosselmeier, if you were really alive, I would not…