Nutcracker and the mouse king

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Twilight now drew on. Her father entered the room with Godfather Drosselmeier; then it was not long before Louisa set out the tea-table, and the family sat round it, talking pleasantly about all sorts of things.
Mary had quietly brought her small arm-chair and placed herself at the godfather`s feet. When the others for a moment were silent, she looked with her great blue eyes right into the Counsellor`s face, and said:
“I know now, dear godfather, that my Nutcracker is your nephew, the young Drosselmeier from Nuremberg. He has become a prince, or rather a king; so much has come true, as your companion, the Astronomer, prophesied. But you know well that he is at open war with Lady Mouseykin`s son, the ugly Mouse King. Why don`t you give him help?”
Mary further related the whole course of the battle as she had witnessed it, and was often interrupted by her mother and Louisa laughing at her. Only Fred and the Counsellor kept their gravity.
“Wherever did the girl get all that silly stuff into her head?” said the Doctor.
“Oh, she has a lively imagination,” answered her mother. “These are just dreams which came from the feverishness after her hurt.”
“It is all not true,” said Fred; “my hussars are not such cowards!”
But Godfather Drosselmeier, smiling queerly, took the little girl on his lap, and spoke more softly than ever.
“Ah, my dear Mary, to you belongs a gift denied to me and to us all; you are a born princess like Pirlipat, for you reign in a beautiful bright kingdom! But you have much to suffer if you make the cause of poor deformed Nutcracker your own; for the Mouse King persecutes him in all ways. Yet you – not I – you alone can save him, if you will only be loyal and steadfast.”
Neither Mary nor any one else knew what Drosselmeier meant by these words; indeed, they seemed to the Doctor so odd that he felt the Counsellor`s pulse and said:
“My good friend, you have your head all wrong; I will prescribe something for you.”
But the Doctor`s wife shook her head thoughtfully, and said half to herself:
“I can guess what the Counsellor means, though I can`t put it into plain words.”
CHAPTER XI
THE VICTORY
Not long afterwards, Mary was awakened one moonlit night by a strange tumult that seemed to come from one corner of the room. It was as if pebbles were being thrown and rolled about, amid a hideous accompaniment of hissing and squeaking.
“Ah, the mice! The mice are coming back!” cried Mary in terror, and would have waked her mother, but she could not utter a sound, or even move a finger, as she saw the Mouse King working himself through a hole in the wall, till at length, with sparkling eyes and shining crowns, he advanced into the room, then with a mighty bound sprang up on the small table which stood close to Mary`s bed.
“Hee! hee! hee! Must give me your sugar-plums, your toffee, small thing – else I bite that Nutcracker of yours to pieces! Nutcracker, do you hear?”
So piped out the Mouse King, gnashing and clashing horribly with his teeth, and quickly sprang out of sight again through the mouse-hole.
Mary was so distressed by the dreadful apparition that next morning she looked quite pale, and could scarcely speak for inward agitation. A hundred times she thought of telling what had happened, to her mother, or to Louisa, or at least to Fred; but she asked herself, “Will any of them believe me, and shall I not be well laughed at by everybody?”
Yet it was quite clear to her she must sacrifice her sugar-plums and toffee to save Nutcracker. As much as she had of these nice things she laid out that evening on the edge of the cupboard shelf. Next morning, her mother said:
“I don`t know how the mice have got into our parlour – just see, poor Mary, they have eaten up all your sweet stuff!”
Indeed it was so! The sticky toffee had not proved much to the taste of greedy Mouse King, but he had nibbled all over it with his sharp teeth, so that it must be thrown away.
Mary did not take the loss of her sweets much to heart; rather she secretly rejoiced to think that it had saved Nutcracker`s life. But what were her feelings when next night there came again a squeaking and squawking at her ear!
Ah! it was the Mouse King back again, and still more horribly glowed his eyes than the night before, and still more hatefully hissed he between his teeth:
“Must give me your sugar and gingerbread figures, little thing, or I bite your Nutcracker in pieces!” and with this, away scampered the grim Mouse King.
In great distress, Mary went next morning to the cupboard, and sorrowfully looked at her sugar and gingerbread men. She had reason indeed to be sorrowful, for you can`t think, my good reader, what dear little figures made out of sugar and gingerbread Mary Stahlbaum possessed. First of all, a very pretty shepherd with a shepherdess was feeding a whole herd of milk-white sheep, and his dog jumped close by quite like life; then came two postmen with letters in their hands, and four fine couples of nicely-dressed young men with maidens elegantly adorned all over, were rocking themselves in a swing-boat. Behind some ballet-dancers stood Old King Cole beside the Maid of Orleans, for whom Mary did not care so very much, but right back in the corner was a red-cheeked little child, her favourite of all– the tears sprang into small Mary`s eyes.
“Ah, dear Herr Drosselmeier!” she cried, turning to the Nutcracker, “whatever will I not do to save you? But still it is hard!”
Nutcracker the while looked so sad that Mary, who could fancy she saw the Mouse King`s seven jaws open to devour the unhappy youth, resolved to sacrifice everything for his sake.
All her sugar figures she set out this evening on the edge of the shelf, as before she had done with the goodies. She kissed the shepherd, the shepherdess, the little lambs; and last of all she fetched from the corner her favourite, the dear red-cheeked child, whom she took care to put behind all the rest. The gingerbread Old King Cole and the Maid of Orleans had to stand in the first row.
“Oh, this is too bad!” exclaimed her mother, next morning. “There must be a great nasty mouse living in the cupboard, for all poor Mary`s pretty sugar figures are gnawed and bitten to bits.”
Mary could hardly keep back her tears; but she soon smiled again at the thought, “What does it matter so long as Nutcracker is safe!”
In the evening, when her mother told the Counsellor about the mischief a mouse did in the children`s cupboard, Dr. Stahlbaum remarked what a pity it was they could not get rid of this pest, which played such tricks in the cupboard and ate up Mary`s sweet things.
“Well,” put in Fred eagerly, “the baker, who lives below us, has a fine grey “chamber councillor,” which I can bring up. He will soon stop these doings, and bite off the mouse`s head, were it Lady Mouseykins herself, or her son, the Mouse King!”
“Yes, by jumping about on chairs and tables,” laughed his mother, “and upsetting cups and glasses, and doing ever so much more damage.”
“Not at all!” answered Fred. “The baker`s cat is a clever fellow; I wish I could walk as steadily along the sharp roof as he can.”
“Only let us have no puss at night,” begged Louisa, who could not bear cats.
“Fred is right,” said his father. “But first we might try setting a trap – have we none?”
“We can get the best kind from Godfather Drosselmeier, who invented them!” cried Fred.
All the rest laughed, and the mistress declaring that there was no trap in the house, the Counsellor said he had several, and sent at once for a first-class one.
Their godfather`s story of the Hard Nut came now clearly into the mind of Mary and Fred. While cook was toasting the bacon, Mary trembled with excitement, and, her head full of the story and its marvels, thus addressed their familiar Betsy:
“Ah, Lady Queen, do beware of Mouseykins and her family!”
But Fred had drawn his sword, bidding the whole race of mice come on, and he would soon clear them off.
All, however, remained still, under and about the hearthstone. When now the Counsellor tied the shred of bacon on a thin thread, and softly softly, laid the trap in the cupboard, Fred called out, “Take care, Godfather Clockmaker, that the Mouse King plays you no trick!”
Ah, what had poor Mary to go through that night! There came an ice-cold creeping up and down her arm, and a loathsome breath on her cheek, and a piping and squeaking in her ear. The horrible Mouse King sat on her shoulder, blood-red foam dripping out of his seven open jaws, and, gnashing and clashing with his teeth, he hissed out to Mary as she lay motionless for fear and dread:
“Hiss! Hiss! none of your bacon!
Mouse King too sharp, not to be taken!
Trap very fine, but not what it looks!
Give me out now your picture-books!
Do you hear? – and your new frock too!
Else there shall be no peace for you!
You very well know,
Nutcracker must go,
I will tear him so-
Hee! Hee! – Pi! Pi! Squeak! Squeak!”
Now was Mary overcome by sorrow and woe. She looked so pale and out of sorts, that when her mother next morning remarked that the mouse had not been caught, believing Mary to be afraid of it and distressed about the loss of her sweets, she added:
“But never mind, dear child, we will soon get rid of the naughty mouse. If traps are no good, Fred must bring up his grey “chamber councillor!”
As soon as Mary found herself alone in the parlour, she went up to the glass cupboard, and, sobbing, spoke thus to her Nutcracker:
“Ah, my dear, good Herr Drosselmeier, what can a poor unhappy girl do for you? Were I to give all my picture-books, even my beautiful new frock which I got as a Christmas present, to be torn to pieces by the horrible Mouse King, will he not then go on asking more and more, so that at last I shall have nothing left to give, and he will want to bite up me myself instead of you? – oh, poor girl that I am, what can I do now? – what am I to do now?”
Weeping and lamenting so bitterly, little …