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The Story of The Hard Nut, Part 3
The candles had just been lit the next evening when Godfather Drosselmeier did indeed arrive in Marie's room and resume his story:
DROSSELMEIER and the court astronomer had been traveling from place to place for fifteen years, and still they had discovered no trace of the Nut Krakatuk.
"O Nuremberg my happy home
As Drosselmeier kept lamenting and lamenting, the astronomer, overcome with sympathy, began to moan so pitifully that he could be heard all over Asia. But after a while he pulled himself together, wiped his tears, and said, "Dear and esteemed colleague, why do we sit here lamenting? Why don't we go to Nuremberg? What difference does it make where we look for that wretched nut Krakatuk?"
"O Krakatuk, hard nut from which I die
With that last cry Madam Mouserinks expired. She was carried away by the Keeper of the Royal Stoves. No one had been paying attention to young Drosselmeier, but then the princess reminded the king of his promise, and he gave orders to bring the young hero in. But when the poor fellow appeared thus disfigured, the princess held her hands before her face and cried out: "Take him away. Take that nasty Nutcracker away!" Without delay the Royal Bouncer seized him by his little shoulders and threw him out the door. The king was furious at this attempt to palm a nutcracker off on him as a son-in-law.
THE JUDGE had finished his story. In her opinion, said Marie, Princess Pirlipat was a horrid, ungrateful minx. Fritz, however, thought that if Nutcracker had an ounce of spunk he would make short shrift of the King of the Mice and get his good looks back.
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)
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Children, I could spend four weeks telling you about all the places they went and all the strange and unusual things that happened to them, but I won't. Instead, I shall tell you only that Drosselmeier was sick at heart and longed for his beloved native city of Nuremberg. One day when he and his friend were smoking wretched tobacco in the middle of a large forest in Central Asia, Drosselmeier was quite overpowered by homesickness. "O Nuremberg," he cried --
How foolish I have been to roam
And how I yearn to return
To Nuremberg, my Nuremberg
Where houses all have windows
And churches all have doors."
"You've got something there," replied Drosselmeier, and heaved a sigh of relief. They both arose, knocked the ashes out of their pipes, and headed straight for Nuremberg. They had barely arrived when Drosselmeier ran to his cousin, the carver, varnisher, and gilder of dolls, Christoph Zacharias Drosselmeier, whom he had not seen for many years. The clockmaker told the doll maker the whole story of Princess Pirlipat, Madam Mouserinks, and the nut Krakatuk. The doll maker clapped his hands in amazement and cried out, "Cousin, cousin, how perfectly wonderful!"
The clockmaker also related the incidents of his long journey, how he had spent two years with the King of Dates, how the Prince of Almonds had rudely turned him away, how he had vainly consulted the Natural History Society in Squirrelville -- in short, how he had nowhere found the slightest trace of the nut Krakatuk.
While listening, Christoph Zacharias had several times snapped his fingers, twirled about on one foot, and clicked his tongue. In the end he exclaimed, "Hmm!-- Good gracious! -- Heavens above! -- I can hardly believe it!" Then he tossed his cap and wig into the air, hugged his cousin with all his might, and cried out, "Cousin! Cousin! You're a made man! Because if I'm not very much mistaken, the nut Krakatuk is right here in my house."
Whereupon he brought in a box, opened it, and took out a gilded, medium-sized nut.
"Here it is," he said. "And now let me tell you how I came by it. Many years ago, at Christmastime, a strange mm came here with a sack full of nuts that he was trying to sell. Right outside my shop he got into a fight with a local nut seller, who felt very strongly that a stranger had no business selling nuts in our town. So the stranger put down his sack, and just then a heavily loaded cart came along and rode over it. All his nuts were cracked except one, which the vendor offered with a mysterious smile to sell me for a 1720 twenty-kreuzer piece. I looked in my pocket and to my great surprise found just the coin the man wanted. So I bought the nut and gilded it. I can't imagine why I paid so much for that nut and why I prized it so highly."
Every last doubt about its being the precious nut Krakatuk was dispelled when the court astronomer scraped away the gilt and found the word "Krakatuk" incised in the shell in Chinese characters. The travelers were overjoyed, and the doll maker was the happiest of men when his cousin Drosselmeier assured him that his fortune, too, was assured, since, in addition to a sizable pension, he would be supplied with gold for his gilding as long as he lived.
The two travelers, the wizard and the astronomer, had already put on their nightcaps and were getting ready for bed when the astronomer spoke up as follows:
"Esteemed colleague, one piece of good fortune never comes alone. Take my word for it, the nut Krakatuk isn't the only thing we've found; we've also found the young man who's going to crack it between his teeth and give Princess Pirlipat the beauty kernel. I am referring to none other than your cousin's son." And in his enthusiasm he protested: "No, I will not go to bed. I mean to draw up the young man's horoscope this very night."
With that he threw off his nightcap and set to work on his observations.
True enough, the cousin's son was an affable, nice-looking young
fellow who had never been shaved and had never worn boots. In his younger days, to be sure, he had been a jumping jack for a Christmas or two, but all trace of that had vanished, for since then his father had taught him proper behavior. Now, at Christmastime, he wore a sword and a red jacket with gold trimmings; and since he carried his hat under his arm, there was nothing to hide his magnificent pig-tailed wig. There he stood in his father's shop, gallantly cracking nuts for young ladies, for which reason they called him Nutcracker.
Next morning, the astronomer threw his arms around the clock maker and cried out, "It's him! We've got him, he's found. But there are two things, my dear colleague, that must be borne in mind. First, you must make your excellent nephew a sturdy wooden pigtail, connected with his lower jaw in such a way that a tug at the one sets the other in motion; second, when we return to the palace, we must take care not to tell a soul that we have brought the young man who is to crack the nut with his teeth; in fact, he must not show himself until we have been there for some time. I read in the horoscope that after a few others have broken their teeth trying to crack the nut, the king will promise the princess and his throne to the man who succeeds and thereby restores the princess's lost beauty."
Cousin doll maker was so delighted to hear that his son was going to marry Princess Pirlipat and become a prince and a king that he entrusted the boy entirely to the care of the two travelers. The pigtail that Drosselmeier attached to his hopeful young nephew was a complete success, and thanks to this device the boy was able to crack the hardest peach pits.
Drosselmeier and the astronomer sent word to the palace that the nut Krakatuk had been found, and advertisements were put in the papers forthwith. By the time the travelers got there several handsome young men, including one or two princes, had arrived, determined, thanks to the soundness of their teeth, to free the princess from the witch's spell. The travelers were aghast when they saw the princess. The little body with its tiny hands and feet could barely support the ungainly head. The ugliness of the face was accentuated by a white cotton beard that had sprouted over her mouth and chin.
Everything happened as the astronomer had read in his horoscope. One beardless and bootless boy after another broke his teeth and jaws on the nut Krakatuk without doing the princess the least bit of good. When carried away semiconscious by the dentists who were in attendance for the occasion, they sighed, "That is indeed a hard nut to crack!"
The king in despair then promised his daughter and kingdom to the man who would break the spell, whereupon the gentle and well-bred young Drosselmeier stepped forward and asked leave to try. 
None of the young men had made such an impression on the princess. She pressed her little hands to her heart and sighed ever so fervently: "Oh, I do hope it's he who cracks the nut and becomes my husband."
After young Drosselmeier had graciously saluted the king and queen and Princess Pirlipat as well, the Lord High Chamberlain handed him the nut Krakatuk. He put it between his teeth, gave his pigtail a good tug, and -- crack crack -- broke the shell into many pieces. Adroitly removing a few fibers from the kernel, he handed it to the princess with a low bow, closed his eyes, and took a step backward. The princess swallowed the kernel, and wonder of wonders! The misshapen monster was no more, and there stood the loveliest of maidens. Her face was woven of lily-white and rose-red silk; her eyes were glittering azure stones; and her head was piled high with curled threads of gold.
Drums and trumpets mingled with the rejoicings of the populace. The king and his whole court danced on one foot, as they had at Pirlipat's birth, and the queen, who had fainted for joy, had to be rubbed with cologne. The tumult was most upsetting to young Drosselmeier, who had still to complete his seven steps backward. But he kept his head, and was just raising his right foot for the seventh step when Madam Mouserinks arose from the floor, piping and squeaking hideously. In putting his foot down, young Drosselmeier stepped on her, and almost fell.
Oh, cursed fate! A fraction of a moment later, young Drosselmeier was as ugly as Princess Pirlipat had been. 
His shrunken body could hardly support the monstrously swollen head with the big protuberant eyes and the wide, hideously yawning mouth. In place of his pigtail he now had a narrow wooden cloak with which to move his lower jaw. Both the clockmaker and the astronomer were beside themselves with horror, but then they saw Madam Mouserinks on the floor, writhing in her blood. Her wickedness had not gone unavenged, for young Drosselmeier's toe had struck her so sharply in the neck that she was doomed to die. But in her death agony Madam Mouserinks squeaked in a most heartrending manner:
Hee hee, pee pee
You too, Nutcracker, will perish by and by.
My son with sevenfold crown
Will bring Nutcracker down.
Yea, never fear
He will avenge his mother dear.
O Life, blood red and milky white,
I leave thee for the shades of night.
Squeak!"
He put all the blame on the clockmaker and the astronomer, and banished them both from his kingdom forever. This last development was not in the horoscope that the astronomer had drawn up in Nuremberg. But that did not discourage him making further observations, and he read in the stars that young Drosselmeier would make the best of his new situation and become a prince and a king despite his ugliness. But, the horoscope continued, he'd cast off his ugliness only if he could kill the son whom Madam Mouserinks had borne after the death of her seven sons with their seven heads, and if he could win a lady's heart inspite of his ugliness. And it seems that young Drosselmeier, as most recently seen in his father's shop Nuremberg, is a nutcracker but also a prince.
That, children, is the story of the hard nut, and now you know why people say, that was a hard nut to crack, and why it is that nutcrackers are so ugly.
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.