down in it from one generation to another. Did ever you hear about the Princess Pirlipat, the witch Mouseyrinks, and the clever Clockmaker?’
‘I say, Godpapa Drosselmeier,’ interrupted Fritz at this juncture, ‘you’ve put Nutcracker’s teeth in again all right, and his jaw isn’t wobbly as it was; but what’s become of his sword? Why haven’t you given him a sword?’
‘Oh,’ cried Drosselmeier, annoyed, ‘you must always be bothering and finding fault with something or other, boy. What have I to do with Nutcracker’s sword? I’ve put his mouth to rights for him; he must look out for a sword for himself.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Fritz, ‘so he must, of course, if he’s a right sort of fellow.’
‘So tell me, Marie,’ continued Drosselmeier, ‘if you know the story of Princess Pirlipat?’
‘Oh no,’ said Marie. ‘Tell it me, please—do tell it me!’
‘I hope it won’t be as strange and terrible as your stories generally are,’ said her mother.
‘Oh no, nothing of the kind,’ said Drosselmeier. ‘On the contrary, it’s quite a funny story which I’m going to have the honor of telling this time.’
‘Go on then—do tell it to us,’ cried the children; and Drosselmeier commenced as follows:—
THE STORY OF THE HARD NUT
Pirlipat’s mother was a king’s wife, so that, of course, she was a queen; and Pirlipat herself was a princess by birth as soon as ever she was born. The king was quite beside himself with joy over his beautiful little daughter as she lay in her cradle, and he danced round and round upon one leg, crying again and again,
‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah! Did anybody ever see anything so lovely as my little Pirlipat?’
And all the ministers of state, and the generals, the presidents, and the officers of the staff, danced about on one leg, as the king did, and cried as loud as they could, ‘No, no—never!’
Indeed, there was no denying that a lovelier baby than Princess Pirlipat was never born since the world began. Her little face looked as if it were woven of the most delicate white- and rose-colored silk; her eyes were of sparkling azure, and her hair all in little curls like threads of gold. Moreover, she had come into the world with two rows of little pearly teeth, with which, two hours after her birth, she bit the Lord High Chancellor in the fingers, when he was making a careful examination of her features, so that he cried, ‘Oh! Gemini!’ Quite loud.
There are persons who assert that ‘Oh Lord’ was the expression he employed, and opinions are still considerably divided on this point. At all events, she bit him in the fingers; and the realm learned, with much gratification, that both intelligence and discrimination dwelt within her angelical little frame.
All was joy and gladness, as I have said, save that the queen was very anxious and uneasy, nobody could tell why. One remarkable circumstance was, that she had Pirlipat’s cradle most scrupulously guarded. Not only were there life guardsmen always at the doors of the nursery, but—over and above the two head nurses close to the cradle—there had always to be six other nurses all round the room at night. And what seemed rather a funny thing, which nobody could understand, was that each of these six nurses had always to have a cat in her lap, and to keep on stroking it all night long, so that it might never stop purring.
It is impossible that you, my reader, should know the reason of all these precautions; but I do, and shall proceed to tell you at once.
Once upon a time, many great kings and very grand princes were assembled at Pirlipat’s father’s court, and very great doings were toward. Tournaments, theatricals, and state balls were going on on the grandest scale, and the king, to show that he had no lack of gold and silver, made up his mind to make a good hole in the crown revenues for once, and launch out regardless of expense. Wherefore (having previously ascertained, privately, from the state head master cook that the court astronomer had indicated a propitious hour for pork-butchering), he resolved to give a grand pudding-and-sausage banquet. He jumped into a state carriage, and personally invited all the kings and the princes—to a basin of soup, merely—that he might enjoy their astonishment at the magnificence of the entertainment. Then he said to the queen, very graciously:
‘My darling, you know exactly how I like my puddings and sausages!’
The queen quite understood what this meant. It meant that she should undertake the important duty of making the puddings and the sausages herself, which was a thing she had done on one or two previous occasions. So the Chancellor of the Exchequer was ordered to issue out of store the great golden sausage-kettle, and the silver casseroles. A great fire of sandal-wood was kindled, the queen put on her damask kitchen apron, and soon the most delicious aroma of pudding-broth rose steaming out of the kettle. This sweet smell penetrated into the very council chamber. The king could not control himself.
‘Excuse me for a few minutes, my lords and gentlemen, he cried, rushed to the kitchen, embraced the queen, stirred in the kettle a little with his golden scepter, and then went back, easier in his mind, to the council chamber.’
The important juncture had now arrived when the fat had to be cut up into little square pieces, and browned on silver spits. The ladies-in-waiting retired, because the queen, from motives of love and duty to her royal consort, thought it proper to perform this important task in solitude. But when the fat began to brown, a delicate little whispering voice made itself audible, saying, ‘Give me some of that, sister! I want some of it, too; I am a queen as well as yourself; give me some.’
The queen knew well who was speaking. It was Dame Mouseyrinks, who had been established in the palace for many years. She claimed relationship to the royal family, and she was queen of the realm of Mousolia herself, and lived with a considerable retinue of her own under the kitchen hearth. The queen was a kind-hearted, benevolent woman; and, although she didn’t exactly care to recognize Dame Mouseyrinks as a sister and a queen, she was willing, at this festive season, to spare her the tit-bits she had a mind to. So she said, ‘Come out, then, Dame Mouseyrinks; of course you shall taste my browned fat.’
So Dame Mouseyrinks came running out as fast as she could, held up her pretty little paws, and took morsel after morsel of the browned fat as the queen held them out to her. But then all Dame Mouseyrink’s uncles, and her cousins, and her aunts, came jumping out too; and her seven sons (who were terrible ne’er-do-wells) into the bargain; and they all set-to at the browned fat, and the queen was too frightened to keep them at bay. Most fortunately the mistress of the robes came in, and drove these importunate visitors away, so that a little of the browned fat was left; and this, when the court mathematician (an ex-senior wrangler of his university) was called in (which he had to be, on purpose), it was found possible, by means of skillfully devised apparatus provided with special micrometer screws, and so forth, to apportion and distribute amongst the whole of the sausages, &c., under construction.
The kettledrums and the trumpets summoned all the great princes and potentates to the feast. They assembled in their robes of state; some of them on white palfreys, some in crystal coaches. The king received them with much gracious ceremony, and took his seat at the head of the table, with his crown on, and his scepter in his hand. Even during the serving of the white pudding course, it was observed that he turned pale, and raised his eyes to heaven; sighs heaved his bosom; some terrible inward pain was clearly raging within him. But when the black-puddings were handed round, he fell back in his seat, loudly sobbing and groaning.
Everyone rose from the table, and the court physician tried in vain to feel his pulse. Ultimately, after the
