Chapter 6
Marie had to spend almost a whole week in bed because she became dizzy whenever she tried to get up. But at last she recovered and could run and play as merrily as before.
The glass cabinet had been repaired as good as new and was again filled with trees, flowers, houses, and beautiful dolls. Marie was thrilled to see her beloved Nutcracker standing on the second shelf smiling with all of his teeth intact.
As she looked at her favorite toy, she remembered the story Drosselmeier had told of the history of the Nutcracker and his quarrel with Lady Mouserinks and her son. She realized that her Nutcracker could be none other than the pleasant – but unfortunately cursed – young Drosselmeier from Nuremberg. The clockmaker from the court of Pirlipat’s father could be none other than Judge Drosselmeier, which Marie had never once doubted. “But why… why didn’t your uncle help you?”
It became clear to Marie that the battle she had seen was in fact a battle for the Nutcracker’s kingdom and crown. Were not the dolls his subjects, and had he not fulfilled the astronomer’s prediction by becoming their leader? As the clever Marie pondered over this, the more she thought of the Nutcracker and the dolls as living people, and she half-expected them to start moving about. But they remained stiff and motionless in the cabinet. But Marie, certain beyond any doubt that they really were alive, decided it was because of Lady Mouserinks’s curse.
“But,” she said to Nutcracker, “even if you can’t move or speak, dear Mr. Drosselmeier, I know that you can understand me – I know it very well. You can count on me to help you, if you need it. At the very least I’ll ask your uncle if he can help.”
Nutcracker didn’t move or stir, but Marie thought she heard a faint sigh and a gentle voice through the cabinet, just barely audible:
Little Marie, Guardian sweet, I’m yours to keep
Little Marie A shiver ran down Marie’s spine, but she was comforted nonetheless.
Dusk fell, and her father stepped into the room with Godfather Drosselmeier. Before long Louise had arranged the tea table and the family sat down and had a merry conversation. Marie quietly moved her little easy chair near Drosselmeier’s feet and sat down. When everyone had quieted down she looked up at the judge with her big blue eyes and said, “Godfather Drosselmeier, I realize that the Nutcracker is your nephew, the young Drosselmeier from Nuremberg, and that he has become prince – no, king – as the astronomer had predicted, but you already know this – and that he is at battle with the son of Lady Mouserinks. Why don’t you help him?” Marie once again told everyone about the battle and how it went. Everyone except for Fritz and Drosselmeier began laughing.
“Where does the girl get such ridiculous ideas into her head?” Dr. Stahlbaum asked.
“She’s always had a vivid imagination,” her mother said. “These are just dreams brought about by her fever.”
“It’s not true, any of it,” Fritz said. “My hussars aren’t such cowards. If they were, I’d personally discipline them.”
But godfather Drosselmeier put Marie on his lap and with an odd smile said very quietly, “Dear Marie, you were born a princess like Pirlipat, for you rule a bright and beautiful land. But you will have to suffer much if you are to look after Nutcracker, for the Mouse King will pursue him in every land and across any border. I cannot help him – only you can do that. Be faithful and strong.”
Neither Marie nor anyone else knew what to say after that. The doctor took Drosselmeier’s pulse and said, “You have, my esteemed friend, a severe head cold. I’ll write you out a prescription.”
But Mrs. Stahlbaum shook her head slowly and said quietly, “I think I know what he’s saying, but I can’t quite explain it.”
It wasn’t long after that incident that Marie was wakened one moonlit night by a strange rumbling that seemed to come from the corner of the room. It was as if small stones were being thrown about with squeaks and squeals thrown in.
“The mice – the mice have come back!” Marie cried in surprise. She wanted to wake her mother, but found herself unable to make a sound or move a muscle. She could only watch as the Mouse King squeezed himself out through a hole in the wall. His fourteen eyes and seven crowns glistened as he bounded through the room and made a huge leap up to the top of Marie’s nightstand.
“Hee hee hee, I must have your sugar balls and marzipan, or I will bite your Nutcracker through!” he squeaked, and gnashed his teeth hideously. Then he jumped off the table and disappeared through the hole in the wall.
Marie was so frightened by his horrific appearance that the next morning she was very pale and could barely say a word. A hundred times she wanted to tell her mother, Louise, or at least Fritz what had happened, but she thought, “will they believe me, or will they laugh at me?”
But one thing was certain, and that was that she would have to give up her sugar balls and marzipan. She put each and every piece in front of the toy cabinet that night. The next morning her mother said, “I don’t know how all these mice got into our living room – look, Marie! They’ve eaten all your candy!”
Indeed they had. The marzipan wasn’t to the Mouse King’s taste, but he nibbled it with his sharp teeth so that it had to be thrown out.
Marie wasn’t concerned with the candy, however. She was quite happy inside for she believed that Nutcracker was safe.
But that night she heard a dreadful squeaking and squealing right by her ear. The Mouse King was there again and looked even more horrible than before. His eyes gleamed and he hissed more threateningly from between his gnashing teeth, “I must have more. Give me your sugar dolls, or I’ll bite your Nutcracker through!”
And he jumped away again.
Marie was very sad. The next morning she went to the cabinet and looked mournfully at her sugar dolls. Her pain was not unreasonable – her sugar dolls were beautifully shaped and molded into figures even you might find difficult to believe. A shepherd and shepherdess looked after grazing flocks of milky-white lambs while their merry little dog scampered about, two mailmen walked with letters in their hand, and four handsome couples – men in dapper suits and women in beautiful dresses – rocked in a Russian swing. Behind that there were dancers, then Pachter Feldkümmel and Joan of Arc, whom Marie didn’t particularly care about. But in the corner stood a red-cheeked child, Marie’s favorite. Tears welled from her eyes. “Oh!” she exclaimed, turning to the Nutcracker, “Dear Mr. Drosselmeier, I’ll do everything I can to save you, but it’s very hard!”
She looked at the Nutcracker, who looked so helpless that she couldn’t help but imagine the Mouse King with all seven mouths open to devour the unfortunate young man. At that, she was ready to sacrifice everything. She took all of her sugar dolls and set them by the base of the cabinet as she had with the sugar balls and marzipan the night before. She kissed the shepherd, the shepherdess, the lambs, and her favorite, the red-cheeked child, which she put in the very back. Pachter Feldkümmel and Joan of Arc were put in front.
“Now that’s too bad,” Marie’s mother said the next morning. “A very big and nasty mouse must live in the toy cabinet, because poor Marie’s sugar dolls are all gnawed and chewed up.”
Marie could not keep herself from crying, but she soon smiled again when she said to herself, ‘What does it matter? Nutcracker is safe.’
That evening, after Marie’s mother told the judge about the damage caused by the mouse in the cabinet, Dr. Stahlbaum said, “It’s a shame we can’t exterminate that infernal mouse that’s destroying Marie’s candy.”
“Hey,” Fritz interrupted enthusiastically, “the baker downstairs has got a big gray cat I’d like to bring up. He’ll take care of things and bite off that mouse’s head, even if it’s Lady Mouserinks or the Mouse King himself!”
Their mother laughed. “And jump around on tables and couches, knock down the glasses and cups, and cause a thousand other damages.”
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t,” Fritz protested. “He’s a clever cat. I wish I could walk as gracefully on the roof as he does.”
“Please, no tomcats tonight,” said Louise, who could not tolerate cats.
“Actually, Fritz has a point,” Dr. Stahlbaum said. “But could we set up a trap? Or do we have none?”
“Godfather Drosselmeier can make one. He invented them,” Fritz said.
Everyone laughed, and after Mrs. Stahlbaum informed everyone that there were no mousetraps in the house the judge announced that he had several, and within an hour he had gone to his home and brought back a splendid mousetrap.
The tale of the hard nut was very much alive inside Fritz and Marie’s heads. When Marie saw Dora the cook (whom she knew quite well) browning the fat, all of the stories came rushing back to her head. She began to tremble and she blurted, “Oh my queen, beware of Mouserinks and her family!”
At that, Fritz drew his sword and said, “If any of them showed up here, I’d take them out!”
Later, as Fritz watched Drosselmeier bait the mousetrap and set it into the cabinet, he said, “Careful, godfather Drosselmeier, that the Mouse King doesn’t play some trick on you.”
That night, Marie something ice-cold feet crawling up her arm and something rough and disgusting brush against her cheek. There was a horrible squealing in her ear – the Mouse King sat on her shoulder. He drooled blood-red, gnashed his teeth even more ferociously than before, and hissed into Marie’s ear:
Don’t go to the house Don’t go to the feast Can’t let yourself get caught Like a wretched little beast
Give me all your picture books Give me your Christmas dress Or I’ll nibble Nutcracker all to bits And you’ll never have any peace Squeak!
Marie was miserable and visibly distressed. She was haggard and pale, and when her mother – who though that Marie was still upset over her candy and terrified of the mouse – noticed this she said, “I’m afraid that nasty mouse hasn’t been caught yet.” Then she added, “But we’ll get it, don’t worry. If the trap doesn’t work, we’ll have Fritz bring up the baker’s cat.”
As soon as Marie was alone in the living room, she stood in front of the glass cabinet and sobbing, said, “Oh, Mr. Drosselmeier, what more can an unfortunate girl like me do for you? The Mouse King wants my picture books and the dress the Christ Child gave me – and when he’s bitten through those he’ll just demand more. I’m afraid when I run out of things to give him he’ll want to bite me up instead. What am I supposed to do now?”
As Marie complained to the Nutcracker, she noticed a large spot of blood on his neck.
Since learning that the Nutcracker was really Drosselmeier’s nephew, she no longer carried him about in her arm nor kissed him as she had before, and in fact she found herself becoming quite shy in front of him. However, she removed him from the toy cabinet and wiped away the blood with her handkerchief. Suddenly, she felt him growing warm in her hand – and even moving. She quickly set him back down, and he spoke with apparent difficulty, “My dear Miss Stahlbaum, to whom I owe everything, do not sacrifice your picture books or your Christmas dress for me. I just need a sword – if I had a sword, I could-”
And suddenly he stopped, and his melancholic eyes became still and lifeless once more.
Marie was no longer frightened or worried. In fact, she jumped with joy because she now knew how to save the Nutcracker without sacrificing any more of her treasured possessions. But where to find a sword? She decided to ask Fritz, and that evening after their parents had departed from the living room, told him the complete story of what had happened in front of the toy cabinet that fateful night, and what she had to do to save Nutcracker now.
Fritz had never thought over anything as hard than what he should do with his hussars after he heard from Marie how badly they’d performed in battle. He asked her very seriously whether it was really true, and after Marie assured him that it was he hurried to the glass-fronted cabinet and gave them a stern speech. Then he cut the insignias off their caps and forbade them from playing the Hussar’s March for a year. Then he turned to Marie and said, “I can help Nutcracker with a sword. I just retired an old colonel of the cuirassiers with a pension yesterday, and he’s got a bright and shiny sword he won’t be needing anymore.”
The aforementioned colonel was making use of his pension in the back corner of the third shelf. Fritz brought him out, removed his silver sword, and hung it from the Nutcracker’s belt.
That night, Marie was so anxious she was unable to sleep. She could hear clattering and banging coming from the living room, and suddenly, “Squeak!”
“The Mouse King – the Mouse King!” Marie cried, and jumped out of her bed in fright. For awhile it was completely quiet, then there was a knock at the door and a small voice said, “Excellent Mistress Stahlbaum, be of glad heart – for I have good news!”
Marie recognized the voice of young Mr. Drosselmeier. She threw on her dressing gown and opened quickly opened the door.
Nutcracker stood outside the door with a bloody sword in one hand and a candle in the other. He knelt down on one knee and said, “You, and you alone, my lady, have given me the courage of a knight to fight the insolent scoundrel who dared treat you so disrespectfully. The treacherous Mouse King now lies mortally wounded and wallowing in his own blood. Please accept, my lady, these tokens of my victory from your devoted knight.” Nutcracker removed the seven crowns he had strung over his left arm and presented them to Marie, who accepted them gladly.
Nutcracker rose to his feet and said, “My excellent lady, with my enemy defeated I can now show you the most wonderful things, if you will kindly follow me for a short while. Please come with me – please come, excellent lady!”
❒
