THE NIGHTINGALE AFTER A FAIRY TALE BY HANS ANDERSEN
There was no more beautiful thing in the world than the palace of the emperor of China. It was built of the very finest porcelain, delicate and fragile as an egg-shell. The people, high and low, who dwelt in that palace moved with the utmost grace and care lest they should break anything, and in this they had more admiration for the extreme beauty of the place than fear of being trampled upon by the emperor for any damage caused by clumsiness. The palace garden was so big that not even the head gardener could tell you where it ended. It contained the most wonderful flowers; every here and there among the glorious blooms was one more rare than its neighbours; and, as if to attract your attention to its splendour, each had attached to it a little silver bell which tinkled melodiously in the hands of every passing zephyr. Miles and miles and miles of beautiful trees and flowers, with smooth lawns and sparkling fountains; and always, if you wished, you could turn off into a delightful wood which skirted the garden and led down a gentle slope to the sea, where, on the brink, the trees were so high and spreading, and the blue water beneath so suddenly deep and still, that great ships could shelter there in the shade. And in this wonderful wood lived a Nightingale which sang so deliciously that all who heard it stood rooted to the spot. Never had such music been heard before in any wood in the world. Even the poor fisherman, busy with his nets in the bay, would pause in his work to listen. 'Heavens, how beautiful that song is!' he would say; and, night after night, when the bird sang he would forget his toil to murmur, 'How beautiful! how beautiful!'
From every land travellers came to see the emperor's palace and walk in the wonderful garden, but those who heard the Nightingale sing said, 'There is nothing here so entrancing as that song.' And these went away carrying the music in their hearts and the tale of it on their lips to tell in their own lands. Thus the wonder of the Nightingale was known afar, and learned men wrote books about it, describing at length the beauty of the emperor's palace and garden only as a fit setting for the crowning wonder of all—the bird whose entrancing song lifted all this earthly splendour to heaven. Many were the poems written and sung about the far-off Nightingale which filled and thrilled the woods with music by the deep-blue sea. The books and the poems went through the whole world, and of course many of them reached the emperor.
Sitting in his golden chair reading, he nodded his head with a smile of pleasure at the splendid descriptions of palace and garden and all they contained; but, when he read that all this splendour was of minor account compared to the glorious singing of a Nightingale in the woods by the sea, he sat up straight and said, 'A Nightingale? What is this? A wonder in my own home, my own garden—a wonder that travels afar and yet I have never heard of it till now! What strange things we read about in books, to be sure. But I'll soon settle the matter.'
With this he summoned his gentleman-in-waiting—a very important personage; so important, indeed, that when one of less importance dared to address him on even a matter more important than either of them, he would simply answer, 'Ph!'—which, as you know, means nothing at all.
'They say,' said the emperor, 'ahem! they say there is a wonderful bird here called a Nightingale, compared with whose delicious song my palace and garden are of small account. Why have I not been informed of this marvel?'