that the unfortunate Nutcracker found himself driven back close to the front of the cupboard, with a very small remnant of his army.
‘Bring up the reserves! Pantaloon! Scaramouch! Drummer! Where the devil have you got to?’ shouted Nutcracker, who was still reckoning on reinforcements from the cupboard. And there did, in fact, advance a small contingent of brown gingerbread men and women, with gilt faces, hats, and helmets; but they laid about them so clumsily that they never hit any of the enemy, and soon knocked off the cap of their commander-in-chief, Nutcracker, himself. And the enemy’s chasseurs soon bit their legs off, so that they tumbled topsy-turvy, and killed several of Nutcracker’s companions-in-arms into the bargain.
Nutcracker was now hard pressed, and closely hemmed in by the enemy, and in a position of extreme peril, He tried to jump the bottom ledge of the cupboard, but his legs were not long enough. Clara and Gertrude had fainted; so they could give him no assistance. Hussars and heavy dragoons came charging up at him, and he shouted in wild despair:
‘A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’
At this moment two of the enemy’s riflemen seized him by his wooden cloak, and the king of the mice went rushing up to him, squeaking in triumph out of all his seven throats.
Marie could contain herself no longer. ‘Oh! my poor Nutcracker!’ she sobbed, took her left shoe off, without very distinctly knowing what she was about, and threw it as hard as she could into the thick of the enemy, straight at their king.
Instantly everything vanished and disappeared. All was silence. Nothing to be seen. But Marie felt a more stinging pain than before in her left arm, and fell on the floor insensible.
THE INVALID
When Marie awoke from a death-like sleep she was lying in her little bed; and the sun was shining brightly in at the window, which was all covered with frost-flowers. There was a strange gentleman sitting beside her, whom she then recognized as Dr. Wendelstern. ‘She’s awake,’ he said softly, and her mother came and looked at her very scrutinizingly and anxiously.
‘Oh, mother!’ whispered Marie, ‘are all those horrid mice gone away, and is Nutcracker quite safe?’
‘Don’t talk such nonsense, Marie,’ answered her mother. ‘What have the mice to do with Nutcracker? You’re a very naughty girl, and have caused us all a great deal of anxiety. See what comes of children not doing as they’re told! You were playing with your toys so late last night that you fell asleep. I don’t know whether or not some mouse jumped out and frightened you, though there are no mice here, generally. But, at all events, you broke a pane of the glass cupboard with your elbow, and cut your arm so badly that Dr. Wendelstern (who has just taken a number of pieces of the glass out of your arm) thinks that if it had been only a little higher up you might have had a stiff arm for life, or even have bled to death. Thank Heaven, I awoke about twelve o’clock and missed you; and I found you lying insensible in front of the glass cupboard, bleeding frightfully, with a number of Fritz’s lead soldiers scattered round you, and other toys, broken mottofigures, and gingerbread men; and Nutcracker was lying on your bleeding arm, with your left shoe not far off.’
‘Oh, mother, mother,’ said Marie, ‘these were the remains of the tremendous battle between the toys and the mice; and what frightened me so terribly was that the mice were going to take Nutcracker (who was the commander-in-chief of the toy army) a prisoner. Then I threw my shoe in among the mice, and after that I know nothing more that happened.’
Dr. Wendelstern gave a significant look at the mother, who said very gently to Marie:
‘Never mind, dear, keep yourself quiet. The mice are all gone away, and Nutcracker’s in the cupboard, quite safe and sound.’
Here Marie’s father came in, and had a long consultation with Dr. Wendelstern. Then he felt Marie’s pulse, and she heard them talking about ‘wound-fever.’ She had to stay in bed, and take medicine, for some days, although she didn’t feel at all ill, except that her arm was rather stiff and painful. She knew Nutcracker had got safe out of the battle, and she seemed to remember, as if in a dream, that he had said, quite distinctly, in a very melancholy tone:
‘Marie! Dearest lady! I am most deeply indebted to you. But it is in your power to do even more for me still.’
She thought and thought what this could possibly be; but in vain; she couldn’t make it out. She wasn’t able to play on account of her arm; and when she tried to read, or look through the picture-books, everything wavered before her eyes so strangely that she was obliged to stop. So that the days seemed very long to her, and she could scarcely pass the time till evening, when her mother came and sat at her bedside, telling and reading her all sorts of nice stories. She had just finished telling her the story of Prince Fakardin, when the door opened and in came Godpapa Drosselmeier, saying:
‘I’ve come to see with my own eyes how Marie’s getting on.’
When Marie saw Godpapa Drosselmeier in his little yellow coat, the scene of the night when Nutcracker lost the battle with the mice came so vividly back to her that she couldn’t help crying out:
‘Oh! Godpapa Drosselmeier, how nasty you were! I saw you quite well when you were sitting on the clock, covering it all over with your wings, to prevent it from striking and frightening the mice. I heard you quite well when you called the mouse-king. Why didn’t you help Nutcracker? Why didn’t you help me, you nasty Godpapa? It’s nobody’s fault but yours that I’m lying here with a bad arm.’
Her mother, in much alarm, asked what she meant. But Drosselmeier began making extraordinary faces, and said, in a snarling voice, like a sort of chant in monotone:
‘Pendulums could only rattle—couldn’t tick, ne’er a click; all the clockies stopped their ticking: no more clicking; then they all struck loud cling-clang. Dollies! Don’t your heads downhang! Hink and hank, and honk and hank. Doll-girls! don’t your heads downhang! Cling and ring! The battle’s over—Nutcracker all safe in clover. Comes the owl, on downy wing—Scares away the mouses’ king. Pak and pik and pik and pook—clocks, bim-boom—grr-grr. Pendulums must click again. Tick and tack, grr and brr, prr and purr.’
Marie fixed wide eyes of terror upon Godpapa Drosselmeier, because he was looking quite different, and far more horrid, than usual, and was jerking his right arm backwards and forwards as if he were some puppet moved by a handle. She was beginning to grow terribly frightened at him when her mother came in, and Fritz (who had arrived in the meantime) laughed heartily, crying, ‘Why, Godpapa, you are going on funnily! You’re just like my old Jumping Jack that I threw away last month.’
But her mother looked very grave, and said, ‘This is a most extraordinary way of going on, Mr. Drosselmeier. What can you mean by it?’
‘My goodness!’ said Drosselmeier, laughing, ‘did you never hear my nice Watchmaker’s Song? I always sing it to little invalids like Marie.’ Then he hastened to sit down beside Marie’s bed, and said to her, ‘Don’t be vexed with me because I didn’t gouge out all the mouse-king’s fourteen eyes. That couldn’t be managed exactly; but, to make up for it, here’s something which I know will please you greatly.’
He dived into one of his pockets, and what he slowly, slowly brought out of it was—Nutcracker! Whose teeth he had put in again quite firmly, and set his broken jaw completely to rights. Marie shouted for joy, and her mother laughed and said, ‘Now you see for yourself how nice Godpapa Drosselmeier is to Nutcracker.’
‘But you must admit, Marie,’ said her Godpapa, ‘that Nutcracker is far from being what you might call a handsome
