The Godparent Creatures

1. Baptized with Tears

...If it hadn't been for a bright The Nutcracker and the Mouse King coloring book I happened to stumble upon, who knows how things would have turned out and whether of not I would get to love fairy tales as much as I love them now.
I was six years old at the time, and this very partly-coloring book was one of my lucky "trophies" of a trip to the local bookstore. The story itself, however, was slightly shortened, so instead of the usual "On the 24th of December Dr. Stahlbaum's children were not allowed, on any pretext whatever, at any time of all that day, to go into the small drawing-room..." it started with "Godpapa Drosselmeyer was anything but a nice-looking man" and a portrait of the aforementioned Godpapa.

(This is how the clockmaker wizard looked on the illustrations by M. Gorsky and S. Tsiporin.)

To be honest, Christian Elias Drosselmeyer in fact doesn't look handsome in the conventional sense. Little, lean, with a black patch covering his right eye, and a spun-glass wig instead of hair. And at the same time, very lively, smiling, and definitely mysterious. The Christmas Presents chapter subtly hints that he may not even be quite human – especially the episode with the clockwork castle.
( Read more... )