I was once sent to get a roll for dinner. The baker's wife handed it to
me and good-humoredly gave me at the same time an old nut-cracker, which
had probably turned up somewhere when she was cleaning house. I had
never seen a nut-cracker before. I was not acquainted with any of its
hidden qualities, and took it like any other doll which appealed to me
by reason of its red cheeks and staring eyes. Joyously starting on my
way home and pressing the nut-cracker, like a newly acquired favorite,
tenderly to my breast, I noticed all of a sudden that it opened its jaws
and in gratitude for my caresses showed me its cruel white teeth. One
may imagine my fright! I shrieked loudly, I ran across the street as
though pursued, but I had not sense or courage enough to throw the demon
away, and as it naturally sometimes closed its mouth and sometimes
opened it again, according to the movements I made while running, I
could not help considering it alive, and arrived home half dead. Here I
was, of course, laughed at and enlightened as to the truth, at last even
scolded. It was all of no avail. It was impossible for me to become
reconciled again to the monster although I recognized its innocence, and
I did not rest until I had received permission to give it away to
another boy. When my father learned of the matter he was of the opinion
that there was no other youngster alive to whom such a thing could
happen. That was very possible, for there was perhaps no other at whom
the cousins of the nut-cracker had made faces from the floor and from
the walls in the evening when he was just going to sleep. This very
night the activity of my seething imagination culminated in a dream,
which was so monstrous and left such an impression upon me that for that
very reason it returned seven times in succession. It seemed to me as
though the dear Lord, of whom I had already heard so much, had stretched
a rope between heaven and earth, had set me upon it, and placed Himself
beside it to swing me. Then without rest or pause I flew up and down
with dizzy speed; now I was high up among the clouds, my hair fluttering
in the wind, and I held on convulsively and closed my eyes; now I was so
near the earth again that I could plainly see the yellow sand and the
little red and white stones--indeed could even reach them with my toes.
I wished to throw myself off; that, however, required resolution, and
before I succeeded, I went up in the air again, and there was nothi