The Nightingale

Long, long ago in China there lived an emperor. His palace was made of the finest porcelain, so delicate that everyone had to tiptoe about, barely touching a thing, so that nothing would clink or crack.

The garden behind the palace stretched so far that even the gardener didn’t know where it ended. Little silver bells were tied to the loveliest flowers, so whenever anyone walked past, ting-a-ling!, they couldn’t help turning to look. Beyond the garden rustled a forest, and beyond the forest lay the deep blue sea. Branches leaned right down over the water, and on one of them lived a nightingale.

He sang so beautifully that a poor fisherman, who rowed out every night to set his nets, would stop working and sit perfectly still in his boat.

“My, oh my, how lovely!” he would whisper.

Then he’d remember his nets, grab the oars and forget all about the bird. But the next night the nightingale sang again, and again the fisherman sat perfectly still.

“Oh, how lovely…”

Travellers came from all over the world to the emperor’s capital. They gaped at the palace and praised the garden, but when they heard the nightingale, they said:

“That’s the best of all!”

When they got home, the learned travellers wrote fat books about it, and the poets wrote poems. And every one of them was about the nightingale in the forest by the sea.

One of those books found its way to the emperor himself. He sat in his golden chair, turning the pages and nodding happily. They’d written nicely about the palace, and even more nicely about the garden. Then suddenly he read: “But the most wonderful thing in this land is the nightingale.”

“What?!” The emperor nearly jumped out of his chair. “A nightingale? In my country? In my very own garden? And I’ve never even heard of it! The things you learn from books!”

He called for his chief courtier. This courtier was so important that whenever anyone of lower rank spoke to him, he would only say “Hm!” and nothing more.

“They say we have a marvellous bird here, a nightingale,” said the emperor. “Why has nobody told me?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it, Your Majesty,” said the courtier with a bow. “It has never been seen at court.”

“I want it singing for me this very evening! The whole world knows what I have, and I don’t!”

“I’ll find it, Your Majesty!”

But where should he look? The courtier ran up the stairs and down the stairs, through halls and along corridors, asking everyone he met. Nobody had ever heard of a nightingale. So he went back to the emperor and said it must all have been made up by the people who write books.

“No,” the emperor snapped. “This book was sent to me by the mighty Emperor of Japan himself, so it must be true. If the nightingale isn’t here this evening, the whole court goes without supper!”

“Oh dear!” yelped the courtier, and off he ran again. Half the court ran after him, because nobody wanted to go without supper.

At last they found a girl, a little kitchen maid.

“The nightingale? Oh, I know him well!” she said. “Every evening I take the leftovers from dinner to my mother, who’s ill and lives by the sea. I walk back after dark, and when I sit down in the forest to rest, he sings. It makes me feel so warm inside, just as if my mother were stroking my hair.”

“Little girl,” said the courtier solemnly, “take us to the nightingale. In return you’ll have a permanent place in the kitchen, and you’ll even be allowed to watch the emperor eat his dinner!”

So off they went into the forest. Suddenly they heard a loud “Moo-oo-oo!” A cow was lowing.

“There it is!” cried the courtiers. “What a mighty voice for such a tiny creature! We’re sure we’ve heard it somewhere before.”

“That’s a cow,” laughed the girl. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

By the pond the frogs began to croak: “Ribbit! Ribbit!”

“Enchanting!” sighed the court musician, deeply moved. “Like tiny little bells!”

“Those are frogs,” snorted the girl. “But we’re close now.”

And then the nightingale began to sing.

“There he is!” whispered the girl, pointing to a little grey bird on a branch. “Listen!”

“Really?” said the courtier in surprise. “I thought he’d be somehow… grander. He’s so plain and grey. He must have gone pale with fright at the sight of so many fine gentlemen.”

“Little nightingale!” called the girl. “Our emperor would so love to hear you sing!”

“With pleasure,” replied the nightingale, and he sang so sweetly that the very leaves trembled.

“Like little glass bells,” the courtier declared. “And look how hard that little throat is working! Strange that we’ve never heard him before. He’ll be a great success at court.”

“Shall I sing for the emperor again?” asked the nightingale. He thought the emperor must be there too.

“Most excellent nightingale, I have the honour of inviting you to the palace this evening,” said the courtier with a bow. “There you will enchant His Majesty with your song.”

“My songs sound best out here in the green forest,” the nightingale said quietly.

But when he heard how much the emperor wanted him, he went along all the same.

At the palace everything was scrubbed and polished till it shone. The porcelain walls and floors gleamed in the light of thousands of golden lamps. The finest flowers with bells were set out in the corridors, and with all the rushing about and the draughts, they jingled so loudly you couldn’t hear yourself think.

In the middle of the great hall stood a golden perch. The whole court gathered. The girl was allowed to stand behind the door, for now she had the title of Real Court Cook. Everyone wore their very best and gazed at the little grey bird. The emperor nodded.

And the nightingale sang.

He sang so beautifully that tears welled up in the emperor’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Then the nightingale sang even more tenderly, and his song went straight to the heart. The emperor was so delighted that he ordered his golden slipper to be hung around the nightingale’s neck. But the nightingale thanked him and said no.

“I already have my reward. I have seen tears in the emperor’s eyes, and there is no treasure dearer to me than that.”

After that evening, the court ladies took to filling their mouths with water and gurgling whenever anyone spoke to them. They thought it made them sound like nightingales. Even the footmen and chambermaids declared themselves satisfied, and they were the hardest of all to please.

Now the nightingale was to live at court. He was given a golden cage and allowed out for a walk twice a day and once at night. Twelve servants went with him, each holding a silk ribbon tied to his leg. Some walk that was! He could neither fly away nor sing for joy.

The whole capital talked of nothing but the marvellous bird. If two people met in the street, one would say “Night…” and the other would chime in with “…ingale!”, and they’d both sigh dreamily.

One day a large parcel was brought to the emperor, labelled “Nightingale”.

“A new book about our famous bird, I expect,” smiled the emperor.

But inside the parcel was a box, and inside the box was a mechanical nightingale. It looked just like the real one, except that it was covered all over with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. When you turned the little key, it sang one of the nightingale’s songs and wagged its tail, and all its gold and silver glittered and sparkled. Around its neck hung a ribbon that said: “The Emperor of Japan’s nightingale is nothing next to the Emperor of China’s.”

“How beautiful!” cried the courtiers, clapping their hands.

And the man who had delivered the gift was at once given the title of Supreme Imperial Bringer of Nightingales.

“Let them sing together!” everyone decided.

But it was no good. The living nightingale sang whatever his heart told him, and the mechanical one sang only what the craftsmen had wound into it. So the mechanical bird was set to sing on its own. People liked listening to it just as much as to the living one, and it was even nicer to look at. It sparkled like a precious bracelet.

Thirty-three times it sang the very same song, without getting the least bit tired. The courtiers wanted more, but the emperor said it was now the living nightingale’s turn.

But where was he? Nobody had even noticed the little grey bird flutter out of the open window, back to his green forest by the sea.

“How ungrateful!” huffed the courtiers. “Well, never mind. We’ve still got the best bird anyway.”

So the mechanical nightingale sang the same song for the thirty-fourth time. The court musician couldn’t praise it enough.

“With a living nightingale, you never know what he’ll sing next. But here everything is clear! You can open it up, see how all the parts turn, and explain the whole thing.”

The real nightingale was banished from the land. And the poor fisherman, who was also allowed to hear the new bird, scratched his head and said:

“It’s pretty, and it sounds much the same… But something’s missing. I couldn’t tell you what.”

Now the mechanical nightingale stood on a silk cushion beside the emperor’s bed. A year went by. Everyone at court knew its song by heart, right down to the very last note, and they even sang along.

Then one evening, something inside the bird went snap! The little wheels spun round, whirr-whirr-clunk!, and the music stopped.

They sent for the watchmaker. He poked and fiddled for a long time, tightening this and that, and finally said:

“I’ve fixed it. But the little cogs are worn down, and new ones can’t be fitted. It mustn’t sing more than once a year now.”

Oh, what a sad day that was! After that, the mechanical bird sang once a year, and each time the court musician gave a long speech about how it sang just as wonderfully as ever. Nobody argued.

Five years passed, and a great sorrow fell upon the land. The emperor fell gravely ill, and people said he would not get better. Folk in the streets asked the chief courtier how the emperor was, and he only shook his head and said, “Hm!”

The emperor lay pale and cold in his magnificent bed. The courtiers decided he was already gone and hurried off to bow to the new emperor. Soft carpets were laid in the halls and corridors so that no footsteps could be heard, and the palace grew very, very quiet.

But the emperor was still alive. The moon shone through the open window onto him, and onto the mechanical bird too.

The emperor found it hard to breathe, as if someone were sitting on his chest. He opened his eyes and saw Death. Death had put on his golden crown and held his golden sword in one hand and his banner in the other. From behind the heavy velvet curtains, strange faces peeped out, some grim and some kind. They were all the things he had ever done, good and bad. They whispered, “Do you remember? Do you remember?” and their whispering made it even harder to breathe.

“Music!” cried the emperor. “Play music, so I can’t hear them! My golden bird, sing! I covered you in jewels. I hung my own slipper around your neck. Sing, I tell you!”

But the bird was silent, for there was nobody to wind it up. And Death sat there, looking at the emperor. Everything grew quiet, quieter than it had ever been.

Then all at once, a song rang out beyond the window. There on a branch sat the living nightingale. He had heard that the emperor was ill, and he had come to bring him comfort and hope.

As he sang, the faces behind the curtains grew paler and paler and melted away. The emperor felt warmer, and his breath came more easily. Even Death listened, and begged:

“Sing, little nightingale! Sing some more!”

“Will you give me the golden sword?” asked the nightingale. “And the banner? And the crown?”

And Death gave up one treasure after another, one for every new song. The nightingale sang about a quiet old garden where white roses bloom, lilac sweetens the air and fresh grass grows green. And Death grew so homesick for that garden of its own that it rose, turned into a cold grey mist and drifted out through the window.

“Thank you, little bird!” whispered the emperor. “I drove you away, and yet you have driven Death away from me. How can I ever repay you?”

“You already have,” replied the nightingale. “The first time I sang for you, there were tears in your eyes. I shall never forget that. Now sleep, and grow strong again. I’ll sing to you.”

And he sang, and the emperor fell into a deep, peaceful, healing sleep.

When he woke, he was well again. The sun was shining in through the window, and the nightingale was still sitting on the branch.

“Stay with me forever,” begged the emperor. “You’ll sing only when you feel like it. And as for that mechanical bird, I’ll smash it into a thousand pieces!”

“Don’t,” said the nightingale. “It did the best it could. Let it stay. But I can’t live in a palace. Let me come whenever I choose. In the evenings I’ll sit on the branch by your window and sing to you about people who are happy and people who are sad, about the good and the bad that are kept hidden from you. A little bird flies far and wide, to the poor fisherman, to the farmer in his field, and to everyone who lives far from your palace. I love your heart more than your crown. I’ll come. Only promise me one thing.”

“Anything you like!” said the emperor. He was already standing in his imperial robes, pressing the golden sword to his heart.

“Don’t tell anyone that you have a little bird who tells you everything. It’s better that way.”

And the nightingale flew away.

Soon afterwards the servants came tiptoeing into the bedroom to look at their dead emperor. In they came, and froze in the doorway.

The emperor smiled at them and said:

“Good morning!”