“I insist,” said Clothilde at last in a voice that could not be gainsaid. But she needn’t have worried as far as Drosselmeier was concerned. He was standing, suddenly feeling frail, and he shambled from the room, knocking against the doorsill as he went.
89.
Drosselmeier knew that at the far end of the long black-and-white-tiled atrium, toward the back of the Stahlbaum house, a set of steps descended to a pair of double doors opening into the garden. Sometimes in the early summer, before the family left for Meritor, Clothilde would invite friends over and serve hock and strawberries under the lindens. It was a bit of a French garden, the way the linden trees were planted in a box formation, all sixteen slim trunks pruned to rise like pillars, branches joining overhead. Drosselmeier was fond of linden. When he did carvings of figurines, linden wood proved supple, accommodating. He knew that no less than Grinling Gibbons had formed linden wood into all sorts of delicacies, as the wood could mimic the details of genuine botany.
Tonight, however, Drosselmeier was more aware of the balsams beyond the stately center of the garden, those that grew up against the stone walls that edged the property. Shaggier than those firs whose limbs lifted upward like the arms of a candelabra or menorah. The snow, which had kept falling since Drosselmeier had arrived with his presents, weighed down the branches of these balsam trees like thatch, turning them into the heaped, furred folds of somnolent woodland animals sleeping on their massive feet.
Breasting the margin on the right side of the garden, being overtaken by growing trees, stood a stone pedestal. Upon it capered a satyr or Caliban of some sort, his leer less erotic than furrowed with worry. Opposite him, through the formal grove on the other side of the garden, a twin pediment featured something like a dryad. At this hour, the stone was black and her filmy garments a sort of nubbly white, but Drosselmeier knew she was usually greened with a light moss, hers being a north-facing prospect.
For the first time, Drosselmeier wondered if poor lost Felix had installed these statues out of some vague homage to the silly story Drosselmeier could now barely remember. At any rate, the stone characters had been here forever, looking out season after season at Sebastian and Günther as they grew, and now at Klara and Fritz. The eternal lusty youth, the eternal maiden. Keats again: “For ever panting and for ever young.”
Without his coat, no hat on his thinning pate, in his dainty dancing shoes, Drosselmeier left footprints on the shallow stone steps and descended to enter, and pass through, the chamber of lindens. He reached the margin of fir trees beyond. There was no doubt that the Stahlbaum house was behind him where he’d left it, rising its shoulders to the equal of its neighbors. But the sense of the house was gone. The trees in front of him shrouded the world. It was as if they met behind him as water does when you wade drunkenly into the sea.
One day he would finish the job of dying he’d begun in childhood.
He put his hands over his face and leaned into the arms of the trees, trying to push among them as if there was someplace to arrive beyond—someplace other than the stone wall of the garden. In this nighttime, the trees in their white lace looked less umber and forest green than they did black, as if they were inked approximations of trees. But they wouldn’t let him in. They linked their limbs against him. He lost the balance of his feet and leaned into them. Their arms wouldn’t let him fall to the ground, but they wouldn’t enfold him either.
Perhaps he murmured Felix? or maybe he just thought it. So Godfather Drosselmeier has finally grown old enough to learn how to be lonely.
It wasn’t Clothilde or Sebastian who brought him around, but little Fritz, who had dampened his own stockings to come tug on Drosselmeier’s sleeve. “You’ve missed the best surprise,” he said in an aggrieved way. “Klara has found a box with a Nutcracker in it.”
90.
“But where did he come from?” asked Klara.
“He was once a handsome young boy,” said Drosselmeier, “but he didn’t find love in time, and this is what happens to some of us.”
“Can he really crack nuts?” asked Fritz, and dove around the room to various crystal dishes. But they were filled with softly yielding marzipan fruits.
“Why is he so ugly?” asked Klara.
Drosselmeier thought about that. “He was going to marry your doll, Pirlipat, when he was a very young and handsome prince.”
“Even though the Mouse Queen bit her and her head went limp?”
“Oh, is that what happened? Ach: But even the ugly deserve rescue. He was going to rescue her. He was a handsome young prince and he searched the wide world until he found a tree with a magic walnut hanging on it, called Krakatuk, which would restore her to her health and vigor. But before he could give it to her, he tripped over backward and dropped it, and a curse caused him to turn old and wooden. So then Pirlipat wouldn’t marry him, and sent him away.”
“I never liked her very much. She’s upstairs under the bed. She can’t come down tonight. Is the Nutcracker really old or does he only look old?”
“Nobody is ever really old,” said Drosselmeier.
“Aha!” cried Fritz. “I found it! Krakatuk! Among the other walnuts!”
He was turning from the tannenbaum. His clever eyes had scissored their glance more quickly than fever-sullen Klara could do. The golden walnut with the minuscule gold hinges and clasp mechanism sat in his palm like a glowing lump of coal, a deified strawberry.
“Ah, you’re ahead of yourself.” Drosselmeier tried not to sound cross. Klara became so excited she began to cough. Both her godfather and her parents turned to her in worry, Clothilde lifting a cloth to Klara’s mouth. While their attention was diverted, Fritz lunged for the old Nutcracker and shoved the golden walnut in his mouth. Drosselmeier pivoted in horror at the sound of the crack. The beautiful walnut was spoiled, its halves rolling away on the floor. The secret key hung on its red thread from a splinter of wood of the Nutcracker’s jaw, which dragged at a dreadful angle, as if he had suffered a fit. The latest thrush feather, its rachis broken, had fallen out to the carpet.
Klara’s coughing was now fueled by anger and panic. She couldn’t stop herself. Drosselmeier stood at once and led Fritz by the hand out of the room, mastering an impulse to give the boy a swift slap. The sound of coughing followed them and could be heard behind the closed doors.
91.
Clothilde bundled Klara upstairs and organized a mustard-plaster for her chest while Sebastian ushered Drosselmeier, Fritz, and a few elderly neighbors and business associates into the dining chamber. The family had outdone itself with festivity. The food was ornate in the French style, and some of the adornments to the table were edible. The elderly ladies cooed over Fritz and lowered their lorgnettes to regard Drosselmeier behind his eye-patch. As they roped him into conversation he realized that they weren’t his seniors but his peers. One of them had hairs upon her chin and another wore a shade of puce so revolting that it put Drosselmeier off his meal.
Without Klara at the table, time taken for a holiday meal seemed pointless.
Fritz was allowed to march new soldiers up and down the napery until, wreathed in apologies, Clothilde finally arrived and took her seat. She waved the soup away and plunged into the fish. “But how is she feeling?” asked Drosselmeier when, for a blessed moment, all the other table guests were involved in chatter.