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The Story of The Hard Nut Continued
THE FOURTH WEEK had already begun. Indeed, it was already Wednesday of that week when the king, his eyes flashing with rage, looked in, shook his scepter with all his might, and cried out, "Christian Elias Drosselmeier, cure the princess or you must die."
DROSSELMEIER and the court astronomer had been hard at work for three whole days and nights. That Saturday the king had just sat down to his noonday meal when Drosselmeier, who was scheduled to be beheaded on Sunday, burst joyously into the room and announced that he had discovered the way to restore Princess Pirlipat's lost beauty. The king embraced him rapturously and promised him a diamond sword, four medals, and two new Sunday coats.
HERE THE JUDGE broke off again and promised to finish the story the following evening.
Maurice Sendak's introduction to E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker
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E.T.A Hoffmann's "Nutcracker" illustrated by Maurice Sendak Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker / Gergiev, Kirov Orchestra Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (1986)
Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" on the Web 
"NOW, CHILDREN," Judge Drosselmeier continued the next evening: Now you know why the queen had the beautiful Princess Pirlipat guarded so closely. Can you blame her for being afraid that Madame Mouserinks would carry out her threat and bite the little princess to death? Drosselmeier's machines were of no use at all against the wily Madam Mouserinks. But the court astronomer, who was at the same time the privy astrologer, argued that Purr and Tomcat and his family had the power to keep Madam Mouserinks away from the cradle. Accordingly, each of the nurses had to hold a scion of that family -- the whole lot of them were employed at court as legation secretaries -- on her lap, and sweeten his arduous duty by diligently scratching his back.
One night at exactly twelve o'clock, a lady-in-waiting who was sitting close by the cradle was startled from a deep sleep. All was quiet round about. Not a purr could be heard. In that deathly stillness you might have heard the woodworms nibbling in the wainscoting. Imagine how this lady-in-waiting must have felt when she saw a big ugly mouse standing up on its hind legs with its hideous head right on top of the princess's face. The lady jumped up with a cry of horror, waking everybody else, but at that moment Madam Mouserinks (for the big mouse beside Pirlipat's cradle was none other) scurried into the corner. The legation secretaries ran after her, but too late; she had vanished into crack in the floor. Awakened by the noise, little Pirlipat cried pitifully.
"Thank goodness she's alive!" cried the nurses. But what was their horror when they looked at Pirlipat and saw what had become of the lovely, delicate child. Instead of the angelic red- and-white face framed in golden curls, they saw an ungainly fat head on a tiny shrunken little body; the azure-blue eyes had been changed into staring green popeyes, and the sweet little mouth had become a gash stretching from ear to ear.
The queen almost died of grief, and the walls of the king's study had to be covered with cotton batting because he kept ramming his head against them, wailing in the most pitiful voice, "Oh, what an unhappy monarch I am!"
He might have realized by then that it would have been better to eat his sausages without fat and to leave Madam Mouserinks and her tribe in peace under the stove. But that wasn't how Pirlipat's royal father's mind worked. He simply put all the blame on the royal clockmaker and wizard, Christian Elias Drosselmeier of Nuremberg, and issued a decree giving Drosselmeier four weeks to restore Princess Pirlipat to her former state or at least suggest a surefire means of doing so, failing which, he should suffer a shameful death at the hands of the royal executioner.
Drosselmeier was terrified. But then, trusting in his craft and in his luck, he did what seemed to be the first thing to do. He skillfully took Princess Pirlipat apart, unscrewed her hands and feet, and examined her inner structure. Unfortunately, he discovered that the larger she grew the more hideous she would be, and he could think of no remedy for it. So he carefully put the princess together again, and, sitting beside her cradle, which he was not allowed to leave, he sank into deepest gloom.
Drosselmeier wept bitter tears, but Princess Pirlipat just cracked nuts. For the first time the wizard was struck by Pirlipat's unusual appetite for nuts, and also noticed that she had come into the world with teeth. The fact of the matter was that immediately after her transformation she had begun to cry, and she had cried until a nut happened to come her way. In a trice she had cracked the nut and eaten the kernel. That calmed her, and from then on her nurses had thought it wise to keep her supplied with nuts.
"O holy natural instinct, O eternally inscrutable sympathy of all beings," cried Christian Elias Drosselmeier. "Thou hast shown me the door to the secret; I shall knock at that door and it will open."
He asked leave to take counsel of the court astronomer, and was brought to him under heavy guard. The two wise men embraced and wept, wept and embraced, for they were dear friends. Then they withdrew to a secret chamber and consulted numerous books dealing with instinct, sympathies, antipathies, and other mysterious things. Night fell. The astronomer gazed at the stars and, with the help of Drosselmeier, who was also versed in such matters, drew up Princess Pirlipat's horoscope. This was no easy matter, for the lines of her destiny crisscrossed and tangled, but at last -- oh joy! -- at last it was clearly revealed that all Princess Pirlipat had to do to throw off the spell that had made her ugly and to recover her beauty was to eat the sweet kernel of the nut Krakatuk.
The nut Krakatuk had so hard a shell that a field howitzer could ride over it without cracking it. This hard nut had to be cracked in the princess's presence by the teeth of a man who had never shaved and never worn boots, and this young man would have to hand her the kernel with his eyes closed and not open them until he had taken seven steps backward without stumbling.
"I expect you," he added affably, "to get to work right after lunch. just to it, my dear wizard, that an unshaven young man in shoes is on hand with the nut Krakatuk. And don't give him any wine to drink beforehand, because we don't want him stumbling when he takes seven steps backward like a crab; afterwards he can get as drunk as he likes."
The king's words filled Drosselmeier with consternation. Trembling and quaking, he explained to the king that though the means had been revealed, both the nut Krakatuk and the young man who could crack it with his teeth remained to be looked for, and it was doubtful whether nut and nutcracker would ever be found.
The king, in a towering rage, swung his scepter over his crowned head and roared with the voice of a lion:
"In that case we'll go through with the beheading!"
Luckily for the terrified Drosselmeier, the king had enjoyed his lunch most especially that day and was therefore disposed to heed the sensible advice that the magnanimous queen, who was touched by Drosselmeier's plight, did not fail to give him. Drosselmeier took heart and argued that he had indeed discovered the means by which the princess could be saved and therefore deserved to have his life spared. "Stuff and nonsense!" said the king. But after downing a glass of schnaps he decided that the two of them, the clockmaker and the astronomer, should set out and not come back till they had the nut Krakatuk. The man who was to crack the nut would -- as the queen suggested -- be found through advertisements in the local and foreign newspapers.
The Story of the Hard Nut, Part One
The Story of the Hard Nut, Part Two
The Story of the Hard Nut, Part Three
The Story of the Hard Nut, Part Four
E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker at our house
Does Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker make sense to you?
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This is but one of the many Nutcracker CDs available; others are priced at a steal!
The sets and costumes are Sendak's; the company, the Pacific Northwest Ballet; the plot, once again, a hack and slash of Hoffmann's treasure. This particular production toys with the sexual awakening of 13-year-old Clara and paints Drosselmeier as being infatuated with her, but not in a way obvious to children. It must be said, this production does away with the tired Land of Sweets -- huzzah; and the music is still Tchaikovsky's.
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, original name Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (1776-1822)
Russian Dance - Trepak
Miniature Overture
March
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Russian Dance - Trepak
Waltz of the Flowers
You are cordially invited to send a free Nutcracker postcard. Worth every penny.