Krakatuk - The story of The Hard Nut

The Story of Krakatuk: or The Hard Nut

retold from the story “Nussknacker und Mausekonig” by E.T.A. Hoffmann

by

Mrs. Dulin

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Chapter 1 - The Browned Fat Incident

            Long ago, when old Drosselmeier was a young man, a King and Queen lived very happily in a castle filled with mice.  The mice were every bit as contented as the king and queen, and all was well, until the King decided to hold a fortnight celebration for all of his kingly friends and their families.  The castle was filled with feasting and fun, and the grandest moment of all was to be a Sausage feast prepared by the Queen herself, who was famous for her excellent sausage.  But as the Queen was browning fat for the sausage over a hickory fire, little Madame Mouserink entered the kitchen. 

            She fancied herself queen of the mice, and was quite convincing that her station entitled her to a portion of the browned fat. The Queen no sooner gave her a piece, than a group of mice ran out from under the stove asking for more of the fat.  Madame Mouserink demanded that her cousins be fed as well. 

            Before long, Madame Mouserinks seven sons, and all of her relatives had surrounded the Queen demanding more of the browned fat.  The Queen called for help, while the mice gobbled up fat at an alarming rate.  

            The Queen sank to the floor in a faint just as her Lady in Waiting rushed in and chased the mice away.  But there was nowhere near enough fat for the sausages.  The feast was a miserable failure. 

            The King flew into a rage.  He called in his royal inventor, Young Christian Elias Drosselmeier, and commanded him to rid the castle of the mice.  Young Drosselmeier fashioned traps and brought many cats into the castle.    

            The following weeks saw the demise of many a mouse, including Madame Mouserink’s seven sons.  The mice were under siege, and each new day brought more unhappy news to Madame Mouserink. 

            The King and Queen, however, had received wonderful news.  The Queen was expecting a baby, and the thought of a baby in the house only renewed the King’s efforts   to rid the castle of Madame Mouserink and her large extended family. 

            One night, as the Queen was fixing herself a snack in the kitchen, Madame Mouserink crept out from under the stove and confronted the Queen.  

            “I am leaving this place of pain, “announced Mouserink, “ but be careful of your precious little baby.  I might just come back and bite it on the nose!”  With that, she left. Nanny Mouse followed grandly,  gripping an unwieldly baby bundle in her arms.  The Queen called for her lady, but fainted away from fear before the Lady could catch her.

                                                Chapter 2 - Birth of a Princess

            Before long, the kingdom rejoiced the birth of a baby princess.  The King and Queen named her Pirlipat because she was so blonde and beautiful, with big blue eyes and pearly white teeth.  Her first act as princess was to bite the Lord High Chancellor.  This delighted the King and he gushed over his baby princess quite shamelessly.

            The Queen, however, could not partake of the lighthearted fun.  Her heart was filled with dread that Madame Mouserink would return.  The Queen barely slept those first few nights, worrying incessantly, until she had an idea that brought her peace.       Around the cradle, the Queen stationed nine nursemaids to guard Princess Pirlipat during the night. Each nursemaid held a cat in her lap.  Although the King was more than a little bothered by the prattle of the nursemaids as they stayed awake all night, the Queen was able to sleep peacefully, knowing Princess Pirlipat was protected.  

            However, one night, all of the cats and nursemaids fell asleep.  And of course, it was this night that Madame Mouserink chose to appear.  She crept up onto the princess’s royal cradle, jumped in and bit the princess hard on the nose. 

            Well, as you might expect, baby Pirlipat wailed her distress, waking the nursemaids who looked into the cradle expecting to see the beautiful baby there.  Instead, a hideous sight met their eyes.  Pirlipat’s nose had swollen to a great length, and her jaw had squared off and become like a clapper and a hinge.  Her eyes bulged and her hair was wild and coarse around her head.  

            When the Queen arrived in the chamber, she took one look and fainted away for a third time.  The King’s reaction was even worse.  He flew into a great rage and demanded that his young inventor, Drosselmeier be brought before him.  He yelled and scolded, telling Drosselemeier that it was all his fault for ridding the castle of the mice and angering Madame Mouserink.  

            The King demanded that Drosselmeier find an answer to the curse now upon the baby Pirlipat, or lose his head.  Drosselmeier sat for many a night at the cradle watching the hideous little Pirlipat gobble down as many nuts as the cooks could find to feed her; such was her new, strange appetite.  It was not long before he had solved the curse.  

             

Chapter 3 - Around the World

            The hardest nut in the world, the rare nut, Krakatuk, was perhaps the stuff of legend, but it was the nut with the power to break the curse. If the nut was cracked by the teeth of a boy who had never worn boots and never shaved, and who could then take seven steps backward without tripping, Drosselmeier was fairly certain the princess's curse would be no more.  

            Drosselmeier set out to find the nut and the boy.  His travels took him around the world. He studied nuts, seeds, beans, and anything that could be mistaken for a nut in every corner of the known world. Nowhere had they seen Krakatuk, and nowhere was there a boy who seemed to have the slightest chance of cracking it.  For 15 years he searched, with no success.  One night, he was visited by a group of sweet candy children, who spirited him off to the Kingdom of the Sweets where he met the Sugar Plum Fairy.  Sugar Plum spoke with Drosselmeier at length, and convinced him that the best way to find something, was to stop looking for it and let it come to him. 

Chapter 4 - The Nutcracker

            Weary Drosselmeier decided to go home and say a final goodbye to  his family before facing the King empty-handed.  He went to his brother, Christophe’s toy shop in Nuremburg. It was Christmas Eve, so the shop was quite a busy place, bustling with joyous activity.  When Christophe heard of Drosselmeier’s plight, he scolded his brother for not coming to him sooner.  Several years before, Christophe had bought a nut.  

            This nut had been in the bag of a nut vendor when the bag got trampled by a team of horses.  All of the nuts had been trampled save one.  The one nut had Chinese characters etched into the side of it, and bore no evidence of the horses but a tiny hair of a fracture on the surface of the shell.  The nut vendor had told Christophe it was not luck at all that had saved the nut, for this was the hardest nut in the world - a nut called Krakatuk. Christophe had guilded it and set it in his toy cabinet where it had sat ever since. 

            When Drosselmeier scraped the guilding from the nut, he saw the characters, now etched in gold on the side.  Having learned Chinese on his travels, Drosselmeir read the words “Krakatuk: The hardest nut in the world”.  He hugged his brother, and would have hugged his nephew too, except his nephew, Theo,  a fine young lad of 14, was entertaining the young girls at the store by cracking nuts for them with his teeth.  

            A new group of girls ran into the toy shop shouting, “Nussknacker, Nussknacker, crack some nuts for us!” 

            Drosselmeier leapt for joy.  Here was everything he needed to break Pirlipat’s curse.  The King would certainly be delighted. 

Chapter 5 - The Breaking of the Curse

            When news of the nut traveled through the land, boys lined up from all over for the chance to crack it.  Dentists lined up, too, knowing their services were bound to be needed.  

            There was a big celebration at the castle, and Pirlipat, who was now 15 years old,  arrived with her friends, a veil hiding her face from view.  Boys lined up to crack the nut, but Theo hung in the background, waiting for his opportunity.  Several boys tried and failed to crack the nut.  Then Theo stepped forward confidently and asked for a chance to try.  He bit down on the nut.  With a thunderous crack, the nut broke into pieces.  Giving the pieces to Pirlipat, Theo closed his eyes and began to take the seven steps backward.  One, two, three, four, five, six... 

            There was a scurrying behind him and Theo’s seventh step came down upon a small, old Madame Mouserink, who was determined to keep the curse from being broken.  Theo stumbled and fell.  The courtroom fell into a panic as mice ran in to rescue Madame Mouserink from her fatal plan, but it was too late for her.  She shook her little mouse fist at Theo.

            “Krakatuk, hard nut from which I die,

            You too, Nussknacker, will perish by and by.

            My son with seven crowns,

            Will bring Nussknacker down, 

            Never fear.  He will avenge his mother dear.” 

            She died, and the mice dragged her off, while Nanny Mouse introduced a small mutant mouse boy with seven heads.  The mice bowed to their new young king, and then, after a final runaround, disappeared from view.  

            Drosselmeier helped Theo to a chair.

            Pirlipat, meanwhile, followed her last craving for nuts and gobbled up the kernel of Krakatuk in her hand.  There was a thunderclap, and suddenly, the princess who had been hideous for fifteen years became beautiful.  The court rejoiced, until another thunderclap startled everyone.  Theo rose on wobbly feet.  His nose had grown bulbous and his eyes were big, his hair grew white and a beard sprouted instantly from his chin.  His mouth grew into a clapper and a hinge.  A new curse was taking effect.  A curse Theo was destined to suffer until he found a person to love him in spite of his ugliness.  

            Being an extremely confident young man, Theo immediately set about proposing to Princess Pirlipat.  

            “I have saved you from a horrible fate, say that you will marry me, and I will  again be the handsome youth I was.” 

            But the Princess rejected him, saying, “Ew!  I would never marry someone as ugly as you.” 

            The King ordered Drosselmeier and the Nutcracker to be thrown out of the castle. 

            Not knowing where else to turn, Drosselmeier took Theo to see the Sugar Plum fairy for help.  She could not break the curse, but she used her magic to turn the Nutcracker into a wooden doll, to protect him from years of torment, lest his heart grow harder than wood from the abuse.  And so he remains to this day.

            Thus ends the story of The Hard Nut, as told by Christian Elias Drosselmeier to Marie Stahlbaum on Christmas Eve, 1864.  The next events unfold on Christmas Day at the Stahlbaum’s house in The Nutcracker Ballet.