THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING by E.T.A. Hoffmann

Author:E.T.A. Hoffmann [Hoffmann, E.T.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788075839299
Publisher: Musaicum Press
Published: 2017-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

THE DISENCHANTMENT OF THE PRINCESS.

Drums and trumpets mingled their sounds with the loud rejoicings of the people. The king and his whole court danced, as at Pirlipat’s birth, upon one leg; and the queen had to be carefully tended with Cologne water, because she had fallen into a swoon from delight and rapture. Young Drosselmeier, who had still his seven steps to perform, was a good deal discomposed by the tumult, but he kept firm, and was just stretching back his right foot for the seventh step, when Lady Mouserings rose squeaking and squealing out of the floor; down came his foot upon her head, and he stumbled, so that he hardly kept himself from falling. Alas! what a hard fate! As quick as thought, the youth was changed to the former figure of the princess. His body became shrivelled up, and was hardly able to support his great misshapen head, his eyes turned green and staring, and his mouth was stretched from ear to ear. Instead of his queue, a narrow wooden cloak hung down upon his back, with which he moved his lower jaw.

The watchmaker and astronomer were benumbed with terror and affright, while Lady Mouserings rolled bleeding and kicking upon the floor. Her malice did not go unpunished, for young Drosselmeier had trodden upon her neck so heavily with the sharp heel of his shoe that she could not survive. When Lady Mouserings lay in her last agonies, she squeaked and whimpered in a piteous tone: “Oh, Crackatuck! hard nut—hi, hi!—of thee I now must die!—que, que—son with seven crowns will bite—Nutcracker—at night—hi, hi—que, que—and revenue his mother’s death—short breath—must I—hi, hi—die, die—so young—que, que—oh, agony!—queek!” With this cry, Lady Mouserings died, and the royal oven-heater carried out her body. As for young Drosselmeier, no one troubled himself any farther about him, but the princess put the king in mind of his promise, and he commanded that they should bring the young hero before him. But when the unfortunate youth approached, the princess held both hands before her face, and cried, “Away, away with the ugly Nutcracker!” The court marshal immediately took him by the shoulders, and pushed him out of doors. The king was full of anger, because they had wished to give him a Nutcracker for a son-in-law, and he put all the blame upon the mechanist and astronomer, and banished them forever from the kingdom. This did not stand in the horoscope which the astronomer had set up at Nuremberg, but he did not allow himself to be discouraged. He straightway took another observation, and declared that he could read in the stars, that young Drosselmeier would conduct himself so well in his new station, that in spite of his deformity, he would yet become a prince and a king; and that his former beauty would return, as soon as the son of Lady Mouserings, who had been born with seven heads, after the death of her seven sons, had fallen by his hand, and a maiden had loved him, notwithstanding his ugly shape.

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