The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman

Author:E.T.A. Hoffman [Hoffmann, E.T.A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788026802792
Publisher: e-artnow Editions
Published: 2013-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion of the Story of the Hard Nut

TOC

The next evening as soon as the candles were lighted, Godfather Drosselmeier appeared, and continued his story as follows:

Drosselmeier and the astronomer had been fifteen years on their journey without seeing the least signs of the nut Crackatuck. It would take me a month, children, to tell where they went, and what strange things happened to them. I must pass them over, and commence where Drosselmeier sank at last into despondency, and felt a great desire to see his dear native city, Nuremburg. This desire came upon him all at once, as he was smoking a pipe of tobacco with his friend in the middle of a great wood in Asia. “Oh, Sweet city,” he cried, “sweet native city, sweet Nuremberg! He who has never seen thee, though he may have travelled to London, Paris, Rome, if his heart is not dead to emotion, must continually desire to visit thee—thee, oh Nuremberg, sweet city, where there are so many beautiful houses with windows!” As Drosselmeier grieved in such a sorrowful manner, the astronomer was moved with sympathy, and began to cry and howl so pitifully that it was heard far and wide through Asia. He soon composed himself again, wiped the tears out of his eyes, and said: “But why, my respected colleague, why sit here and howl? Why should we not go to Nuremberg? Is it not all the same, wherever we seek after this miserable nut, Crackatuck?”

“That is true,” replied Drosselmeier, greatly consoled. Both arose, knocked out their pipes, and went straightforward out of the wood in the middle of Asia, right to Nuremburg. They had scarcely arrived there, when Drosselmeier ran to his brother, Christopher Zacharias Drosselmeier, puppet-maker, varnisher, and gilder, whom he had not seen for these many years. The watchmaker told him the whole story of the Princess Pirlipat, Lady Mouserings, and the nut Crackatuck, so that he struck his hands together, over and over again with astonishment, and exclaimed: “Ei, ei, brother, brother, what strange things are these!” Drosselmeier then related the history of his travels: how he had passed two years with King Date, how coldly he had been received by Prince Almond, and how he had sought information to no purpose of the Natural Society in Squirrelberg—in short, how his search everywhere had been in vain to find even the least signs of the nut Crackatuck.

During this account, Christopher

Zacharias had often snapped his fingers, turned about on one foot, winked, laughed, clucked with his tongue, and then called out: “Hi—hem—ei—oh!—if it should!—” At last, he tossed his hat and wig up in the air, clasped his brother round the neck, and cried: “Brother, brother, you are safe!—safe, I say; for I must be wonderfully mistaken if I have not that nut Crackatuck at this very moment in my possession!” He then drew a little box from his pocket, and took out of it a gilded nut of moderate size. “See,” he said, “this nut fell into my hands in this way.

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