and laughed beyond measure at the funny little fellow, who (as Fritz wanted his share of the nuts) was passed from hand to hand, and was continually snapping his mouth open and shut. Fritz gave him all the biggest and hardest nuts he could find, but all at once there was a ‘crack—crack,’ and three teeth fell out of Nutcracker’s mouth, and all his lower jaw was loose and wobbly.
‘Ah! My poor darling Nutcracker,’ Marie cried, and took him away from Fritz.
‘A nice sort of chap he is!’ said Fritz. ‘Calls himself a nutcracker, and can’t give a decent bite—doesn’t seem to know much about his business. Hand him over here, Marie! I’ll keep him biting nuts if he drops all the rest of his teeth, and his jaw into the bargain. What’s the good of a chap like him!’
‘No, no,’ said Marie, in tears; ‘you shan’t have him, my darling Nutcracker; see how he’s looking at me so mournfully, and showing me his poor sore mouth. But you’re a hard-hearted creature! You beat your horses, and you’ve had one of your soldiers shot.’
‘Those things must be done,’ said Fritz; ‘and you don’t understand anything about such matters. But Nutcracker’s as much mine as yours, so hand him over!’
Marie began to cry bitterly, and wrapped the wounded Nutcracker quickly up in her little pocket-handkerchief. Papa and mamma came with Drosselmeier, who took Fritz’s part, to Marie’s regret. But papa said, ‘I have put Nutcracker in Marie’s special charge, and as he seems to have need just now of her care, she has full power over him, and nobody else has anything to say in the matter. And I’m surprised that Fritz should expect further service from a man wounded in the execution of his duty. As a good soldier, he ought to know better than that.’
Fritz was much ashamed, and, troubling himself no further as to nuts or nutcrackers, crept off to the other side of the table, where his hussars (having established the necessary outposts and videttes) were bivouacking for the night. Marie got Nutcracker’s lost teeth together, bound a pretty white ribbon, taken from her dress, about his poor chin, and then wrapped the poor little fellow, who was looking very pale and frightened, more tenderly and carefully than before in her handkerchief. Thus she held him, rocking him like a child in her arms, as she looked at the picture-books. She grew quite angry (which was not usual with her) with Godpapa Drosselmeier because he laughed so, and kept asking how she could make such a fuss about an ugly little fellow like that. That odd and peculiar likeness to Drosselmeier, which had struck her when she saw Nutcracker at first, occurred to her mind again now, and she said, with much earnestness:
‘Who knows, Godpapa, if you were to be dressed the same as my darling Nutcracker, and had on the same shining boots—who knows whether you mightn’t look almost as handsome as he does?’
Marie did not understand why papa and mamma laughed so heartily, nor why Godpapa Drosselmeier’s nose got so red, nor why he did not join so much in the laughter as before. Probably there was some special reason for these things.
WONDERFUL EVENTS
We must now explain that, in the sitting-room, on the left-hand as you go in, there stands, against the wall, a high, glass-fronted cupboard, where all the children’s Christmas presents are yearly put away to be kept. Louise, the elder sister, was still quite little when her father had this cupboard constructed by a very skillful workman, who had put in it such transparent panes of glass, and altogether made the whole affair so splendid, that the things, when inside it, looked almost more shining and lovely than when one had them actually in one’s hands. In the upper shelves, which were beyond the reach of Fritz and Marie, were stowed Godpapa Drosselmeier’s works of art; immediately under them was the shelf for the picture-books. Fritz and Marie were allowed to do what they liked with the two lower shelves, but it always came about that the lower one of all was that in which Marie put away her dolls, as their place of residence, whilst Fritz utilized the shelf above this as cantonments for his troops of all arms. So that, on the evening as to which we are speaking, Fritz had quartered his hussars in his—the upper—shelf of these two, whilst Marie had put Miss Gertrude rather in a corner, established her new doll in the well-appointed chamber there, with all its appropriate furniture, and invited herself to tea and cakes with her. This chamber was splendidly furnished, everything on a first-rate scale, and in good and admirable style, as I have already said—and I don’t know if you, my observant reader, have the satisfaction of possessing an equally well-appointed room for your dolls; a little beautifully-flowered sofa, a number of the most charming little chairs, a nice little tea-table, and, above all, a beautiful little white bed, where your pretty darlings of dolls go to sleep? All this was in a corner of the shelf, the walls of which, in this part, had beautiful little pictures hanging on them; and you may well imagine that, in such a delightful chamber as this, the new doll (whose name, as Marie had discovered, was Miss Clara) thought herself extremely comfortably settled, and remarkably well off.
It was getting very late, not so very far from midnight, indeed, before the children could tear themselves away from all these Yuletide fascinations, and Godpapa Drosselmeier had been gone a considerable time. They remained riveted beside the glass cupboard, although their mother several times reminded them that it was long after bedtime. ‘Yes,’ said Fritz, ‘I know well enough that these poor fellows (meaning his hussars) are tired enough, and awfully anxious to turn in for the night, though as long as I’m here, not a man-jack of them dares to nod his head.’ With which he went off. But Marie earnestly begged for just a little while longer, saying she had such a number of things to see to, and promising that as soon as ever she had got them all settled she would go to bed at once. Marie was a very good and reasonable child, and therefore her mother allowed her to remain for a little longer with her toys; but lest she should be too much occupied with her new doll and the other playthings so as to forget to put out the candles which were lighted all round on the wall sconces, she herself put all of them out, leaving merely the lamp which hung from the ceiling to give a soft and pleasant light. ‘Come soon to your bed, Marie, or you’ll never be up in time in the morning,’ cried her mother as she went away into the bedroom.
As soon as Marie was alone, she set rapidly to work to do the thing which was chiefly at her heart to accomplish, and which, though she scarcely knew why, she somehow did not like to set about in her mother’s presence. She had been holding Nutcracker, wrapped in the handkerchief, carefully in her arms all this time, and she now laid him softly down on the table, gently unrolled the handkerchief, and examined his wounds.
Nutcracker was very pale, but at the same time he was smiling with a melancholy and pathetic kindliness which went straight to Marie’s heart.
‘Oh, my darling little Nutcracker!’ said she, very softly, ‘don’t you be vexed because brother Fritz has hurt you so: he didn’t mean it, you know; he’s only a little bit hardened with his soldiering and that, but he’s a good, nice boy, I can assure you: and I’ll take the greatest care of you, and nurse you, till you’re quite, quite better and happy again. And your teeth shall be put in again for you, and your shoulder set right; Godpapa Drosselmeier will see to that; he knows how to do things of the kind—’
Marie could not finish what she was going to say, because at the mention of Godpapa Drosselmeier, friend Nutcracker made a most horrible, ugly face. A sort of green sparkle of much sharpness seemed to dart out of his eyes. This was only for an instant, however; and just as Marie was going to be terribly frightened, she found that she was looking at the very same nice, kindly face, with the pathetic smile which she had seen before, and she saw plainly that it was nothing but some draught of air making the lamp flicker that had seemed to produce the change.
‘Well!’ she said, ‘I certainly am a silly girl to be so easily frightened, and think that a wooden doll could make faces at me! But I’m too fond, really, of Nutcracker, because he’s so funny, and so kind and nice; and so he must be taken the greatest care of, and properly nursed till he’s quite well.’
With
