e could, and was just
stretching out his right foot to make his seventh step, when up came
Dame Mouseyrinks through the floor, making a horrible weaking and
squeaking, so that Drosselmeier, as he was putting his foot down, trod
upon her, and stumbled so that he almost fell. Oh misery!--all in an
instant he was transmogrified, just as the princess had been before:
his body all shrivelled up, and could scarcely support the great
shapeless head with enormous projecting eyes, and the wide gaping
mouth. In the place where his pigtail used to be a scanty wooden cloak
hung down, controlling the movements of his nether jaw.

"'The clockmaker and the astronomer were wild with terror and
consternation, but they saw that Dame Mouseyrinks was wallowing in her
gore on the floor. Her wickedness had not escaped punishment, for young
Drosselmeier had squashed her so in the throat with the sharp point of
his shoe that she was mortally hurt.

"'But as Dame Mouseyrinks lay in her death agony she queaked and
cheeped in a lamentable style, and cried:

"'"Oh, Crackatook, thou nut so hard!--Oh, fate, which none may
disregard!--Hee hee, pee pee, woe's me, I cry!--since I through that
hard nut must die.--But, brave young Nutcracker, I see--you soon must
follow after me.--My sweet young son, with sevenfold crown--will soon
bring Master Cracker down.--His mother's death he will repay--so,
Nutcracker, beware that day!--Oh, life most sweet, I feebly cry,--I
leave you now, for I must die. Queak!"

"'With this cry died Dame Mouseyrinks, and her body was carried out by
the Court Stovelighter. Meantime nobody had been troubling themselves
about young Drosselmeier. But the princess reminded the king of his
promise, and he at once directed that the young hero should be
conducted to his presence. But when the poor wretch came forward in his
transmogrified condition the princess put both her hands to her face,
and cried:

"'"Oh please take away that horrid Nutcracker!"

"'So that the Lord Chamberlain seized him immediately by his little
shoulders, and shied him out at the door. The king, furious at the idea
of a nutcracker being brought before him as a son-in-law, laid all the
blame upon the clockmaker and the astronomer, and ordered them both to
be banished for ever.

"'The horoscope which the astronomer had drawn in Nuernberg had said
nothing about this; but that didn't hinder him from taking some fresh
observations. And the stars told him that