“You see, ladies and gentlemen, Your Royal Majesty! You can never know what to expect from the real nightingale, but everything is determined in the artificial bird. It will be so-and-so, and no different! You can explain it; you can open it up and show the human thought—how the cylinders are placed, how they work, and how one follows the other!”
“My thoughts exactly,” everyone said, and on the following Sunday the conductor was allowed to exhibit the bird for the public. The emperor also said that they were to hear it sing, and they were so pleased by it as if they had drunk themselves merry on tea (for that is so thoroughly Chinese), and they all said “Oh” and stuck their index fingers in the air and nodded. But the poor fisherman, who had heard the real nightingale, said, “It sounds good enough, and sounds similar too, but there’s something missing. I don’t know what.”
The real nightingale was banished from the country and the empire.
The artificial bird had its place on a silk pillow right by the emperor’s bed. All the gifts it had received, gold and gems, were lying around it, and it had been given the title of Most Imperial Nightstand Singer of the First Rank to the Left because the emperor considered the side towards the heart to be the most distinguished. The heart is on the left side also in emperors. The Royal Conductor wrote twenty-five volumes about the ar-tificial bird that were very learned and very long and included all the longest Chinese words. All the people said that they had read and understood the books. Otherwise they would have been stupid, of course, and would have been thumped on the stomach.
The artificial bird had its place on a silk pillow right by the emperor’s bed.
It continued this way for a whole year. The emperor, the court, and all the other Chinamen knew every little cluck in the artificial bird’s song, but they were therefore all the more happy with it—they could sing along, and they did. The street urchins sang “zizizi, klukklukkluk,” and the emperor sang it, too. Yes, it was certainly lovely.
But one evening, as the artificial bird was singing beautifully, and the emperor was lying in bed listening, there was suddenly a “svupp” sound inside the bird, and something snapped: “Surrrrrr.” All the wheels went around, and the music stopped.
The emperor leaped out of bed at once and had his court physician summoned, but what good could he do? So they called for the watchmaker and after a lot of talk and a lot of tinkering, he managed to more or less fix the bird, but he said it had to be used sparingly because the threads were so worn, and it wasn’t possible to install new ones without the music becoming uneven. This was a great tragedy! The artificial bird could only sing once a year, if that. But then the Court Conductor would give a little speech with big words and say that it was as good as before, and so it was as good as before.
Five years went by and the whole country was greatly saddened because it was said that the emperor was sick and wouldn’t live much longer. The people had been very fond of him, but a new emperor had already been selected. His subjects stood out on the street and asked the chamberlain how the old emperor was doing.
“P!” he said and shook his head.
Cold and pale, the emperor lay in his big magnificent bed. The whole court thought he was dead, and all of them ran to greet the new emperor. The chamber attendants ran about to talk about it, and the palace maids had their usual gossip. There were cloth runners spread in all the rooms and hallways so that you couldn’t hear anyone walk, and therefore it was very quiet—so quiet. But the emperor wasn’t dead yet. Stiff and pale, he lay in the magnificent bed with the long velvet curtains and the heavy gold tassels. High on the wall a window was open, and the moonlight shone on the emperor and the artificial bird.
The poor emperor was barely able to draw a breath; it was as if something was sitting on his chest. He opened his eyes, and then he saw that it was Death sitting there. He had put on the emperor’s golden crown and held in one hand his golden sword, and in the other his magnificent banner. Round about in the folds of the velvet bed curtains strange heads were peeping out, some quite terrible and others blessedly mild. They were the emperor’s good and evil deeds looking at him, now that Death was sitting on his heart.
“Do you remember that?” whispered one after the other. “Do you remember that?” and then they spoke to him of so many things that the sweat sprang out on his forehead.
“I knew nothing about that!” said the emperor. “Music, music, the big Chinese drum!” he called, “so that I won’t hear everything that they’re saying.”
But they continued, and Death nodded like a Chinaman along with everything that was said.
“Music, music!” cried the emperor. “You little blessed golden bird. Sing, just sing! I have given you gold and precious things. I have myself hung my golden slipper around your neck. Sing, oh sing!”
But the bird stood still. There was no one to wind it up, and otherwise it didn’t sing, but Death with his big empty eye sockets continued to look at the emperor, and it was quiet, so terribly quiet.
Suddenly outside the window came a beautiful song. It was the little, live nightingale, sitting on the branch outside. It had heard about the emperor’s sorrows and had come to sing with comfort and hope for him, and as it sang, the figures became paler and paler, the blood flowed quicker and quicker in the emperor’s weak limbs, and Death itself listened and said: “Sing on, little nightingale, sing on.”
“Music, music!” cried the emperor.
“You little blessed golden bird. Sing, just sing!”
“Will you give me the magnificent golden sword? Will you give me the precious banner? Will you give me the emperor’s crown?”
And Death gave each treasure for a song, and the nightingale continued to sing. It sang about the quiet churchyard, where the white roses grow, where the elder trees emit their scent, and where the fresh grass is watered by tears of the survivors. Then Death felt a longing for his garden and glided, like a cold, white fog, out the window.
“Thank you, thank you,” said the emperor. “You heavenly little bird, I know you well. I chased you away from my country and my empire, and yet your song has cast away the evil sights from my bed and taken Death from my heart! How shall I reward you?”
“You have rewarded me,” said the nightingale. “I received tears from your eyes the first time I sang for you, and I’ll never forget that. Those are the jewels that enrich a singer’s heart. But rest now and become healthy and strong. I’ll sing for you.”
It sang—and the emperor fell into a sweet sleep, a gentle restoring sleep.
The sun shone through the windows on him when he awoke, stronger and healthy. None of his servants had come back because they thought he was dead, but the nightingale was still sitting there singing.
“You must stay with me always,” said the emperor. “You’ll only sing when you want to, and I’ll crush the artificial bird into a thousand pieces.”
“Don’t do that!” said the nightingale. “It has done what good it could. Keep it as always. I can’t live here at the palace, but let me come when I want to, and in the evenings I’ll sit on the branch by the window and sing for you so you can be happy and thoughtful too. I’ll sing about the happy and about those who suffer. I’ll sing about the good and evil that is hidden from you! Your little songbird flies far and wide to the poor fishermen, to the farmer’s roof, to everywhere that’s far from you and your palace. I love your heart more than your crown, and yet your crown has a scent of something sacred about it!—I’ll come, I’ll sing for you.—But you must promise me one thing.”