down beside it, said to her new doll:
‘I’m going to ask a favor of you, Miss Clara—that you will give up your bed to this poor sick, wounded Nutcracker, and make yourself as comfortable as you can on the sofa here. Remember that you’re quite well and strong yourself, or you wouldn’t have such fat, red cheeks, and that there are very few dolls indeed who have as comfortable a sofa as this to lie upon.’
Miss Clara, in her Christmas full dress, looked very grand and disdainful, and said not so much as ‘Muck!’
‘Very well,’ said Marie, ‘why should I make such a fuss, and stand on any ceremony?’—took the bed and moved it forward; laid Nutcracker carefully and tenderly down on it; wrapped another pretty ribbon, taken from her own dress, about his hurt shoulder, and drew the bed-clothes up to his nose.
‘But he shan’t stay with that nasty Clara,’ she said, and moved the bed, with Nutcracker in it, up to the upper shelf, so that it was placed near the village in which Fritz’s hussars had their cantonments. She closed the cupboard, and was moving away to go to bed, when—listen, children! there begun a low soft rustling and rattling, and a sort of whispering noise, all round, in all directions, from all quarters of the room—behind the stove, under the chairs, behind the cupboards. The clock on the wall ‘warned’ louder and louder, but could not strike. Marie looked at it, and saw that the big gilt owl which was on the top of it had drooped its wings so that they covered the whole of the clock, and had stretched its cat-like head, with the crooked beak, a long way forward. And the ‘warning’ kept growing louder and louder, with distinct words: ‘Clocks, clockies, stop ticking. No sound, but cautious warning. Mousey king’s ears are fine. Prr-prr. Only sing poom, poom; sing the olden song of doom! prr-prr; poom, poom. Bells go chime! Soon rings out the fated time!’ And then came ‘Poom! poom!’ quite hoarsely and smothered, twelve times.
Marie grew terribly frightened, and was going to rush away as best she could, when she noticed that Godpapa Drosselmeier was up on the top of the clock instead of the owl, with his yellow coat-tails hanging down on both sides, like wings. But she manned herself, and called out in a loud voice of anguish:
‘Godpapa! Godpapa! What are you up there for? Come down to me, and don’t frighten me so terribly, you naughty, naughty Godpapa Drosselmeier!’
But then there begun a sort of wild kickering and queaking, everywhere, all about, and presently there was a sound as of running and trotting, as of thousands of little feet behind the walls, and thousands of little lights began to glitter out between the chinks of the woodwork. But they were not lights; no, no! little glittering eyes; and Marie became aware that, everywhere, mice were peeping and squeezing themselves out through every chink. Presently they were trotting and galloping in all directions over the room; orderly bodies, continually increasing, of mice, forming themselves into regular troops and squadrons, in good order, just as Fritz’s soldiers did when maneuvers were going on. As Marie was not afraid of mice (as many children are), she could not help being amused by this, and her first alarm had nearly left her, when suddenly there came such a sharp and terrible piping noise that the blood ran cold in her veins. Ah! What did she see then? Well, truly, kind reader, I know that your heart is in the right place, just as much as my friend Field Marshal Fritz’s is, itself, but if you had seen what now came before Marie’s eyes, you would have made a clean pair of heels of it; nay, I consider that you would have plumped into your bed, and drawn the blankets further over your head than necessity demanded.
But poor Marie hadn’t it in her power to do any such thing, because, right at her feet, as if impelled by some subterranean power, sand, and lime, and broken stone came bursting up, and then seven mouse-heads, with seven shining crowns upon them, rose through the floor, hissing and piping in a most horrible way. Quickly the body of the mouse which had those seven crowned heads forced its way up through the floor, and this enormous creature shouted, with its seven heads, aloud to the assembled multitude, squeaking to them with all the seven mouths in full chorus; and then the entire army set itself in motion, and went trot, trot, right up to the cupboard—and, in fact, to Marie, who was standing beside it.
Marie’s heart had been beating so with terror that she had thought it must jump out of her breast, and she must die. But now it seemed to her as if the blood in her veins stood still. Half fainting, she leant backwards, and then there was a ‘klirr, klirr, prr,’ and the pane of the cupboard, which she had broken with her elbow, fell in shivers to the floor. She felt, for a moment, a sharp, stinging pain in her arm, but still, this seemed to make her heart lighter; she heard no more of the queaking and piping. Everything was quiet; and though she didn’t dare to look, she thought the noise of the glass breaking had frightened the mice back to their holes.
But what came to pass then? Right behind Marie a movement seemed to commence in the cupboard, and small, faint voices began to be heard, saying:
‘Come, awake, measures take;
Out to the fight, out to the fight;
Shield the right, shield the right;
Aim and away, this is the night.’
And harmonica-bells began ringing as prettily as you please.
‘Oh! That’s my little peal of bells!’ cried Marie, and went nearer and looked in. Then she saw that there was bright light in the cupboard, and everything busily in motion there; dolls and little figures of various kinds all running about together, and struggling with their little arms. At this point, Nutcracker rose from his bed, cast off the bedclothes, and sprung with both feet on to the floor (of the shelf), crying out at the top of his voice:
‘Knack, knack, knack,
Stupid mousey pack,
All their skulls we’ll crack.
Mousey pack, knack, knack,
Mousey pack, crick and crack,
Cowardly lot of schnack!’
And with this he drew his little sword, waved it in the air, and cried:
‘Ye, my trusty vassals, brethren and friends, are ye ready to stand by me in this great battle?’
Immediately three scaramouches, one pantaloon, four chimney-sweeps, two zither-players, and a drummer cried, in eager accents:
‘Yes, your highness; we will stand by you in loyal duty; we will follow you to the death, the victory, and the fray!’ And they precipitated themselves after Nutcracker (who, in the excitement of the moment, had dared that perilous leap) to the bottom shelf. Now they might well dare this perilous leap, for not only had they got plenty of clothes on, of cloth and silk, but besides, there was not much in their insides except cotton and sawdust, so that they plumped down like little wool-sacks. But as for poor Nutcracker, he would certainly have broken his anus and legs; for, bethink you, it was nearly two feet from where he had stood to the shelf below, and his body was as fragile as if he had been made of elm-wood. Yes, Nutcracker would have broken his arms and legs, had not Miss Clara started up, at the moment of his spring, from her sofa, and received the hero, drawn sword and all, in her tender arms.
‘Oh! You dear, good Clara!’ cried Marie, ‘how I did misunderstand you. I believe you were quite willing to let dear Nutcracker have your bed.’
But Miss Clara now cried, as she pressed the young hero gently to her silken breast:
‘Oh, my lord! Go not into this battle and danger, sick and wounded as you are. See how your trusty vassals, clowns and pantaloon, chimney-sweeps, zithermen and drummer, are already arrayed below; and the puzzle-figures,
