It was getting very late, not so very far from midnight, indeed, before the children could tear themselves away from all these Yuletide fascinations, and Godpapa Drosselmeier had been gone a considerable time. They remained riveted beside the glass cupboard, although their mother several times reminded them that it was long after bedtime. ‘Yes,’ said Fritz, ‘I know well enough that these poor fellows (meaning his hussars) are tired enough, and awfully anxious to turn in for the night, though as long as I’m here, not a man-jack of them dares to nod his head.’ With which he went off. But Marie earnestly begged for just a little while longer, saying she had such a number of things to see to, and promising that as soon as ever she had got them all settled she would go to bed at once. Marie was a very good and reasonable child, and therefore her mother allowed her to remain for a little longer with her toys; but lest she should be too much occupied with her new doll and the other playthings so as to forget to put out the candles which were lighted all round on the wall sconces, she herself put all of them out, leaving merely the lamp which hung from the ceiling to give a soft and pleasant light. ‘Come soon to your bed, Marie, or you’ll never be up in time in the morning,’ cried her mother as she went away into the bedroom.
As soon as Marie was alone, she set rapidly to work to do the thing which was chiefly at her heart to accomplish, and which, though she scarcely knew why, she somehow did not like to set about in her mother’s presence. She had been holding Nutcracker, wrapped in the handkerchief, carefully in her arms all this time, and she now laid him softly down on the table, gently unrolled the handkerchief, and examined his wounds.
Nutcracker was very pale, but at the same time he was smiling with a melancholy and pathetic kindliness which went straight to Marie’s heart.
‘Oh, my darling little Nutcracker!’ said she, very softly, ‘don’t you be vexed because brother Fritz has hurt you so: he didn’t mean it, you know; he’s only a little bit hardened with his soldiering and that, but he’s a good, nice boy, I can assure you: and I’ll take the greatest care of you, and nurse you, till you’re quite, quite better and happy again. And your teeth shall be put in again for you, and your shoulder set right; Godpapa Drosselmeier will see to that; he knows how to do things of the kind—’
Marie could not finish what she was going to say, because at the mention of Godpapa Drosselmeier, friend Nutcracker made a most horrible, ugly face. A sort of green sparkle of much sharpness seemed to dart out of his eyes. This was only for an instant, however; and just as Marie was going to be terribly frightened, she found that she was looking at the very same nice, kindly face, with the pathetic smile which she had seen before, and she saw plainly that it was nothing but some draught of air making the lamp flicker that had seemed to produce the change.
‘Well!’ she said, ‘I certainly am a silly girl to be so easily frightened, and think that a wooden doll could make faces at me! But I’m too fond, really, of Nutcracker, because he’s so funny, and so kind and nice; and so he must be taken the greatest care of, and properly nursed till he’s quite well.’
With which she took him in her arms again, approached the cupboard, and kneeling down beside it, said to her new doll:
‘I’m going to ask a favor of you, Miss Clara—that you will give up your bed to this poor sick, wounded Nutcracker, and make yourself as comfortable as you can on the sofa here. Remember that you’re quite well and strong yourself, or you wouldn’t have such fat, red cheeks, and that there are very few dolls indeed who have as comfortable a sofa as this to lie upon.’
Miss Clara, in her Christmas full dress, looked very grand and disdainful, and said not so much as ‘Muck!’
‘Very well,’ said Marie, ‘why should I make such a fuss, and stand on any ceremony?’—took the bed and moved it forward; laid Nutcracker carefully and tenderly down on it; wrapped another pretty ribbon, taken from her own dress, about his hurt shoulder, and drew the bed-clothes up to his nose.
‘But he shan’t stay with that nasty Clara,’ she said, and moved the bed, with Nutcracker in it, up to the upper shelf, so that it was placed near the village in which Fritz’s hussars had their cantonments. She closed the cupboard, and was moving away to go to bed, when—listen, children! there begun a low soft rustling and rattling, and a sort of whispering noise, all round, in all directions, from all quarters of the room—behind the stove, under the chairs, behind the cupboards. The clock on the wall ‘warned’ louder and louder, but could not strike. Marie looked at it, and saw that the big gilt owl which was on the top of it had drooped its wings so that they covered the whole of the clock, and had stretched its cat-like head, with the crooked beak, a long way forward. And the ‘warning’ kept growing louder and louder, with distinct words: ‘Clocks, clockies, stop ticking. No sound, but cautious warning. Mousey king’s ears are fine. Prr-prr. Only sing poom, poom; sing the olden song of doom! prr-prr; poom, poom. Bells go chime! Soon rings out the fated time!’ And then came ‘Poom! poom!’ quite hoarsely and smothered, twelve times.
Marie grew terribly frightened, and was going to rush away as best she could, when she noticed that Godpapa Drosselmeier was up on the top of the clock instead of the owl, with his yellow coat-tails hanging down on both sides, like wings. But she manned herself, and called out in a loud voice of anguish:
‘Godpapa! Godpapa! What are you up there for? Come down to me, and don’t frighten me so terribly, you naughty, naughty Godpapa Drosselmeier!’
But then there begun a sort of wild kickering and queaking, everywhere, all about, and presently there was a sound as of running and trotting, as of thousands of little feet behind the walls, and thousands of little lights began to glitter out between the chinks of the woodwork. But they were not lights; no, no! little glittering eyes; and Marie became aware that, everywhere, mice were peeping and squeezing themselves out through every chink. Presently they were trotting and galloping in all directions over the room; orderly bodies, continually increasing, of mice, forming themselves into regular troops and squadrons, in good order, just as Fritz’s soldiers did when maneuvers were going on. As Marie was not afraid of mice (as many children are), she could not help being amused by this, and her first alarm had nearly left her, when suddenly there came such a sharp and terrible piping noise that the blood ran cold in her veins. Ah! What did she see then? Well, truly, kind reader, I know that your heart is in the right place, just as much as my friend Field Marshal Fritz’s is, itself, but if you had seen what now came before Marie’s eyes, you would have made a clean pair of heels of it; nay, I consider that you would have plumped into your bed, and drawn the blankets further over your head than necessity demanded.
But poor Marie hadn’t it in her power to do any such thing, because, right at her feet, as if impelled by some subterranean power, sand, and lime, and broken stone came bursting up, and then seven mouse-heads, with seven shining crowns upon them, rose through the floor, hissing and piping in a most horrible way. Quickly the body of the mouse which had those seven crowned heads forced its way up through the floor, and this enormous creature shouted, with its seven heads, aloud to the assembled multitude, squeaking to them with all the seven mouths in full chorus; and then the entire army set itself in motion, and went trot, trot, right up to the cupboard—and, in fact, to Marie, who was standing beside it.
Marie’s heart had been beating so with terror that she had thought it must jump out of her breast, and she must die. But