A Very German Christmas by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939931894
Publisher: New Vessel Press
Published: 2020-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

1883

NUTCRACKER AND THE KING OF MICE

E. T. A. Hoffmann

On the twenty-fourth of December Dr. Stahlbaum’s children were not allowed, on any pretext whatsoever, at any time of all that day, to go into the small drawing room, much less into the best drawing room into which it opened. Fritz and Marie were sitting cowered together in a corner of the back parlor when the evening twilight fell, and they began to feel terribly eerie. Seeing that no candles were brought, as was generally the case on Christmas Eve, Fritz, whispering in a mysterious fashion, confided to his young sister (who was just seven) that he had heard rattlings and rustlings going on all day, since early morning, inside the forbidden rooms, as well as distant hammerings. Further, that a short time ago a little dark-looking man had gone slipping and creeping across the floor with a big box under his arm, though he was well aware that this little man was no other than Godpapa Drosselmeier. At this news Marie clapped her little hands for gladness, and cried:

“Oh! I do wonder what pretty things Godpapa Drosselmeier has been making for us this time!”

Godpapa Drosselmeier was anything but a nice-looking man. He was little and lean, with a great many wrinkles on his face, a big patch of black plaster where his right eye ought to have been, and not a hair on his head; which was why he wore a fine white wig, made of glass, and a very beautiful work of art. But he was a very, very clever man, who even knew and understood all about clocks and watches, and could make them himself. So that when one of the beautiful clocks that was in Dr. Stahlbaum’s house was out of sorts, and couldn’t sing, Godpapa Drosselmeier would come, take off his glass periwig and his little yellow coat, gird himself with a blue apron, and proceed to stick sharp-pointed instruments into the inside of the clock, in a way that made little Marie quite miserable to witness. However, this didn’t really hurt the poor clock, which, on the contrary, would come to life again, and begin to whirr and sing and strike as merrily as ever, which caused everybody the greatest satisfaction. Of course, whenever he came, he always brought something delightful in his pockets for the children—perhaps a little man, who would roll his eyes and make bows and scrapes, most comic to behold; or a box, out of which a little bird would jump; or something else of the kind. But for Christmas he always had some specially charming piece of ingenuity provided; something which had cost him infinite pains and labor—for which reason it was always taken away and put by with the greatest care by the children’s parents.

“Oh! What can Godpapa Drosselmeier have been making for us this time,” Marie cried, as we have said.

Fritz was of the opinion that, this time, it could hardly be anything but a great castle, a fortress,

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