CHAPTER VIII.
Stories in Full.
The following three stories have for so long formed a part of my repertory that I have been requested to include them in my book, and, in order to associate myself more completely with them, I am presenting a translation of my own from the original Danish version.
The Nightingale.
You must know that in China the Emperor is a Chinaman, and all those around him are also Chinamen. It is many years since all this happened, and for that very reason it is worth hearing, before it is forgotten.
There was no palace in the world more beautiful than the Emperor's; it was very costly, all of fine porcelain, but it was so delicate and brittle, that it was very difficult to touch, and you had to be very careful in doing so. The most wonderful flowers could be seen in the garden, and silver tinkling bells were tied on to the most beautiful of these, for fear people should pass by without noticing them. How well everything had been thought out in the Emperor's garden—which was so big, that even the gardener himself did not know how big. If you walked on and on you came to the most beautiful wood, with tall trees and deep lakes. This wood stretched right down to the sea, which was blue and deep; great ships could pass underneath the branches, and in these branches a nightingale had made its home, and its singing was so entrancing that the poor fisherman, though he had so many other things to do, would lie still and listen when he was out at night drawing in his nets.
“Heavens! how lovely that is!” he said: but then he was forced to think about his own affairs, and the nightingale was forgotten; but the next day, when it sang again, the fisherman said the same thing: “Heavens! how lovely that is!”
Travellers from all the countries of the world came to the Emperor's town, and expressed their admiration for the palace and the garden, but when they heard the nightingale, they all said in one breath: “That is the best of all!”
Now, when these travellers came home, they told of what they had seen. The scholars wrote many books about the town, the palace and the garden, but nobody left the nightingale out: it was always spoken of as the most wonderful of all they had seen, and those who had the gift of the Poet wrote the most delightful poems all about the nightingale in the wood near the deep lake.
The books went round the world, and in course of time some of them reached the Emperor. He sat in his golden chair, and read and read, nodding his head every minute; for it pleased him to read the beautiful descriptions of the town, the palace and the garden; and then he found in the book the following words: “But the Nightingale is the best of all.”