Nutcracker and the mouse king

alarmed; yet soon he took courage to trust his art and his good luck, and at once set about the first operation which seemed to him likely to be of use. He very skillfully took Pirlipat to pieces, screwed off her hands and arms, and examined her construction inside; but thus he had the vexation of discovering that the bigger the Princess grew the more unshapely she would become, and he could hit on no way of mending the matter. He carefully put the Princess together again, and sank down in gloomy dejection beside her cradle, which he durst not leave day or night.
The fourth week had come; it was already Wednesday, when the King looked in with angry eyes, and, shaking his sceptre at him, cried:
“Christian Elias Drosselmeier, set the Princess to rights, or thou must die!”
Drosselmeier began to weep bitterly; but the little Princess Pirlipat went on contentedly cracking nuts. For the first time the Clockmaker was struck by Pirlipat`s unusual appetite for nuts, and by the circumstance that she had come with teeth into the world. Indeed, after her transformation, she had gone on screaming just till she happened to have a nut given her, which she at once cracked, ate the kernel, and then became quiet. Since then the nurses could never be done bringing nuts for her.
“Oh, sacred instinct of nature, eternal mysterious sympathy of all existence!” exclaimed Christian Elias Drosselmeier. “Thou showest me the gate of the secret; I will knock, and it will open!”
He forthwith sought permission to consult the Court Astronomer, and was taken to him under a strong guard. The two officers embraced each other with many tears, being devoted friends, then retired into a private cabinet to turn over many books which treated of instinct, of sympathy and antipathy, and of other mysteries.
Night coming on, the Royal Astronomer consulted the stars, and, with the help of Drosselmeier, also well versed in the same art, drew out Princess Pirlipat`s horoscope. This proved a hard task, for the lines of fate became more and more entangled as they went on; but at last – oh joy! – it lay clear before them that to destroy the enchantment which had so hideously deformed her, and to be made as beautiful as ever, the Princess Pirlipat had nothing to do but to eat the sweet kernel of the nut Crackatuck!
The nut Crackatuck had such a hard shell that a forty-eight pound cannon could be driven over it without breaking it. This hard nut must be cracked by the teeth of a man who had never shaved and never worn boots, and he must hand it to the Princess with his eyes shut, and not open them till he had taken seven steps backward without stumbling.
Three days and three nights did Drosselmeier and the Astronomer work unceasingly; and it was only on Saturday, at the King`s dinner-time, that Drosselmeier, who was to be beheaded on Sunday, burst in, full of triumphant joy, to announce the discovery of the means for restoring the Princess`s lost beauty. The King, embracing him with warm affection, promised him a sword set in diamonds, four Orders of Chivalry, and two new Sunday coats.
“Immediately after dinner, set about the business,” he bade. “See to it, dear Engineer, that the young unshaved man in shoes is provided, along with the nut Crackatuck; and let him drink no wine beforehand, for fear of his stumbling when he takes seven steps backward like a crab; after that he can soak himself to his heart`s content.”
Drosselmeier was sadly taken aback by the King`s speech; and, not without consternation and trembling, he stammered forth that the means of cure indeed were discovered, but that the nut and the young man to bite it were still to seek; indeed there was some doubt whether nut and nutcracker would ever be found.
“Then you must be beheaded after all!” roared the King in a lion-voice, wrathfully brandishing the sceptre above his crowned head.
Lucky it was for poor Drosselmeier that the King had enjoyed his dinner that day, so as to be in good humour for listening to the arguments which the magnanimous Queen did not fail to bring forward in favour of one whose sad fate had touched her heart. Drosselmeier plucked up courage, and represented on his own part that he had duly fulfilled the task set him, and had earned his pardon by pointing out how the Princess could be cured.
The King said this was all stuff and nonsense; but finally decided, after he had taken a glass of stomach-cordial, that both the Clockmaker and the Astronomer should set forth, not to return without the nut Crackatuck in their pockets. The man to bite it open, as the Queen suggested, must be sought for through repeated insertions of an advertisement in the home and foreign newspapers.
Here the Counsellor again broke off, promising to relate the rest next evening.
CHAPTER IX
THE STORY OF THE HARD NUT
Next evening, as soon as the candles were lighted, Godfather Drosselmeier made his appearance, and went on with his story as follows:
Fifteen years were Drosselmeier and the Court Astronomer on their travels, without coming on a trace of the nut Crackatuck. Where they wandered far and wide, what strange wonderful things they fell in with, all this I could go on telling you for a month, but will do nothing of the kind. Enough to say that the sore-troubled Drosselmeier was at length seized by a mighty longing for his native place, Nuremberg. With extraordinary violence, this longing one day overpowered him, as he sat in a great wood in Asia, smoking a pipe of tobacco with his friend.
“Oh, my beautiful mother city,
Who never has seen thee is much to pity!
Though he travel to London, to Rome, to Berne,
After thee his heart must always yearn-
After thee, O Nuremberg, town so dear!
That hath beautiful houses and windows clear!”
As Drosselmeier lifted up his voice so dolefully, the Astronomer was moved by deep sympathy, and began to give forth such lamentable howls that they could be heard over a great part of Asia. Then, composing himself, he wiped the tears from his eyes, and asked:
“But, my worthy colleague, why do we sit here and cry? Why not go to Nuremberg, since it is all one where and how we search for that fated nut Crackatuck?”
“That`s true enough,” answered Drosselmeier, taking comfort.
Both at once stood up, knocked the ashes out of their pipes, and went off in a straight line, without stopping, from the wood in the middle of Asia to the city of Nuremberg.
Scarcely had they arrived there than Drosselmeier hastened to his cousin, the Dollmaker, Varnisher, and Gilder, Christopher Zacharias Drosselmeier, whom he had not seen for many, many years.
To him now the Clockmaker related the whole history of Princess Pirlipat, of the Lady Mouseykins, and of the nut Crackatuck, so that he struck his hands together, and cried out, full of astonishment:
“Ah, cousin, cousin, what a wonderful story!”
Drosselmeier went on to tell of the adventures of his long travel, how he spent two years with the Date King, how he was contemptuously turned away by the Prince of Almonds, how he made inquiries in vain of the Natural History Society in Squirrels` Town – in short, how everywhere he had failed to get even a hint about the nut Crackatuck.
During this narration, Christopher Zacharias had kept snapping his fingers, turning about on one foot, clicking with his tongue, then exclaiming-
“H-m! H-m!-Ah! – Eh! – Oh! – The deuce!” Finally he threw his cap and wig up into the air, warmly embraced his kinsman, and cried out:
“Cousin, cousin, you are saved – saved you are, I say; for I am much mistaken, if I myself do not possess the nut Crackatuck.”
At the same time he pulled out a box from which he drew forth a gilded nut of middling bigness.
“See!” he said, showing the nut to his cousin. “This is the state of the case: years ago a foreigner came to me at Christmas-time, with a sackful of nuts which he wanted to sell. Right before my shop, he got into a quarrel, and laid down the sack that he might better defend himself against the nutsellers of the town, who would not allow a stranger to sell nuts here, and attacked him on this account.
At that moment a heavily-loaded waggon rolled over the sack, and all the nuts were broken except one, which the foreigner, with a queer smile, offered me in exchange for a silver groat of the year 1720. It struck me as singular that I found in my pocket just such a coin as the man wanted, so I bought the nut and gilded it, hardly knowing myself why I paid so dear for the thing and treated it as of such value.”
All doubt of the cousin`s nut being that long-sought-for one became at once removed, when the Astronomer, summoned into council, cleverly scraped away the gilding, and on the rind of the nut found engraved in Chinese characters the word Crackatuck. Great was the joy of the travellers, and the cousin the happiest man under the sun, when Drosselmeier assured him of his fortune being made; for, besides a good pension, he should henceforth receive gratis all the gold leaf he needed for his gilding.
Both the Clockmaker and the Astronomer had already put on their night-caps and were going to bed, when the latter, that is, the Astronomer, thus began:
“My beloved colleague, one piece of luck comes not alone. Believe me, we have found not only the nut Crackatuck, but also the young man who can crack it and restore the Princess to her beauty! I mean no one else than the son of your worthy cousin. Nay, I will not sleep,” he continued enthusiastically, “but this very night will cast the youth`s horoscope.” Therewith he tore off his night-cap, and at once set about taking observations.
The cousin`s son was indeed a nice, well-grown young man, who had never yet shaved or worn boots. In his earlier youth, he had acted as a Jumping-Jack for several Christmases, but that was not in the least perceptible, as his father had taken so much pains to educate him and set him straight. At Christmas-time he wore a fine red coat laced with gold, a s…