Drosselmeier wound the music box. It made a few hesitant plinks, then settled into a merry tune not unfit for dancing. If tin soldiers and wooden figurines might be so moved as to dance. Satisfied, Drosselmeier tucked the little key into the hollowed-out golden walnut shell. He hung the secret among the other marvels and baubles festooning the tannenbaum, including a dozen other golden walnuts on strings. Decoys.
“I think you’ve outdone yourself, Drosselmeier,” said Sebastian with just a hint of disapproval.
“Let them enter while the music is playing; it runs down in just a few moments.”
Beginning to warm to the drama of it, Sebastian slid open the doors. Fritz came tiptoeing forward, eyes wide with greed and adoration. Clothilde was behind him, carrying Klara. The girl’s head was too heavy to lift off her mother’s shoulder, so Clothilde rotated, giving Klara access to the view. The child smiled before putting her thumb back in her mouth.
“Oh, a castle!” cried Fritz, finally letting the clue of music distract him from the balm and seduction of candlelight. At this Klara tried to straighten up. Her mother supported her back. “It has little figures in the windows, and they’re moving!” cried Klara.
“They’re at their own Christmas feast. They don’t know about ours. They don’t know we are watching. Luckily they are very polite and they cannot be embarrassed. They are moved by music,” said Drosselmeier.
“Do they fight?” asked Fritz. “You may not know this, but we’re in desperate need of reinforcements.”
“I doubt they fight, but I do think they dance extremely well,” commented the godfather, though as the music slowed down, the dancers began to flag, too. Fritz tried to poke the residents through the unglassed windows. “Don’t, you’ll dislodge them from their tracks, and it’ll be nearly impossible to reestablish them. They’ll spend their lives lying on the floor, unable to see out the windows.”
“Stupid peasants if all they can do is dance.”
“It’s a holiday, not a military call to arms.”
“How do we get them to dance again?”
“Ah, there is magic in this music, but you must find the key. It’s not far. Be patient. It will not stay hidden for long. Magic never does.”
Fritz lost interest at once and began to root among the other gifts. Clothilde settled her daughter on the settee. They began to ferry small wrapped presents to her. Klara was too listless to work the wrappings, so her mother helped her but let Klara finger out the little treasures one by one.
A small wooden cat bought from some toy maker other than her godfather. “I think that creature has little personality,” observed Drosselmeier coolly. Despite being under the weather, Klara had the good sense to drop it on the floor.
A bear wearing a bishop’s mitre.
A fisherwoman with a net. Under her shawl she had a fish face.
“A person from Spain?” asked Klara of a small carved se?ora featuring a real scrap of lace as her mantilla.
“Only one, I didn’t have time to make her a lover. I hope she won’t be lonely.”
“She looks nice. She will like everyone else.”
“But can a Spanish lady talk to the Russian men and the Chinese rice farmers? I am never sure if they can talk together.”
“Of course they do, Godfather. They speak the same language.”
“Not Spanish or Russian? Or Mandarin?”
“No—it’s the language of Toy.”
“Oh.”
“Children speak it, too, so that is convenient,” said Klara.
“Don’t get excited,” said her mother. “It’ll wear you out. Fritz, have you something to share?”
Fritz had made some drawings as presents for his parents and sister and godfather. His gift to Drosselmeier showed a regiment of sclerotic soldiers with raised bayonets, each one apparently ready to drive his weapon into the skull of the man standing in line in front of him, except the lead soldier, who was bravely facing down a monster of imprecise species. “There’s about to be a bloodbath,” said Drosselmeier. “I admire the courage of the league of men and also their uncanny resemblance. Identical quadruplets, perhaps? But tell me, dear Fritz, is this enemy a lion shorn of its mane, or perhaps a wild horse having a difficult day? Having left its eye-patch at home? That one eye is immense. Compelling.”
“It’s a spy for the King of the Mice.” Fritz was offended, but not very. “Can’t you see his mouse tail?”
“Beg pardon. A magnificent specimen.”
“I did a better one for Klara,” he admitted. “This one was a little messy. You see the last soldier’s feet are on backward. I forgot by the time I got to the knees and there was no room to make them go forward.”
“All the better for running back to camp and calling for reinforcements,” said his godfather.
“Mine has a very good King Mouse.” Klara spoke more vividly than she’d done so far. She leaned forward to show her godfather.
“Really, you’re making quite much of nonsense,” murmured Clothilde to all of them, but Drosselmeier arranged the paper at a distance where viewing could be clearest.
“Now, this is quite a success, I agree,” said Drosselmeier. “Why seven heads?”
“Because he’s the King,” said Klara. “Everybody knows that.”
“I was practicing heads, but they look pretty good all together, no?” whispered Fritz to Drosselmeier.
“That’s what the King looks like,” insisted Klara.
“And mine is . . . a lovely flower,” said Clothilde, with motherly insincerity.
“You explain mine,” said Sebastian, holding up a muddle for all to see.
“I didn’t get to finish,” said his son.
“I see. A fine study of procrastination, and I shall treasure it.”
“What is going to happen in the battle?” asked Drosselmeier, “or has it already happened?”
“It’s happening tonight,” said Klara.
“What are they fighting over?”
“Dirk, please. It’s Christmas Eve,” said Clothilde, but her daughter was looking around the room, trying to make sense of the question.
“It must be the tree,” she said. Dirk felt the wind from outside come up through the sleeves of his coat somehow, as if he were catching Klara’s fever.
“The tree is very beautiful, I agree,” he said, “but mice don’t live in a tree. Why do they want it?”
“The tree is hung with walnuts,” she said. “Walnuts are good for eating—and the mice are hungry during the wintertime. Snow on the ground. They have to come indoors.”
“I suppose so. And the King of the Mice has seven mouths to feed, all his own.”
“But you need walnuts to plant other trees, too. Walnuts are seeds, aren’t they? They grow in trees.”
“We need seeds to grow trees; that’s true.”
“The toys live in the tannenbaum, because it’s Christmas and the tree is magic now. If the mice win and swarm the tree, over-run it—how horrible, it will become brown and die. But the toys need it. So they will fight to the death to save their own home. Look at so many of them hanging on strings there! It’s their home.”