“Now the two birds must sing together,” said the courtiers. “What a lovely duet that will be!”
So they had to sing together, but they did not get on very well, for the real bird sang its own way, and did not keep time with the mechanical bird.
“The discords are not the new one’s fault,” said the music-master, “for it sings in perfect time and in every way is entirely correct.”
The nightingale at court
Afterward the imitation bird was made to sing alone. Singing thus, it was just as great a success as the real bird; and of course it was much prettier to look at, for it glittered like bracelets and breastpins. Thirty-three times it sang the same tune over, and still it was not tired. The courtiers would willingly have heard it from the beginning again, but the emperor said that the live nightingale must have a turn now. Where was it? No one had noticed that it had flown out of the open window back to its own green woods.
“What is the meaning of this?” said the emperor.
The courtiers all blamed the nightingale, and thought it a most ungrateful creature. “Anyway, we have the best bird,” they said.
Then the imitation bird had to sing again, which made the thirty-fourth time they had heard the same tune. But they did not know the tune thoroughly, even then, it was so difficult. The music-master praised the bird exceedingly, and insisted that it was much better than a live nightingale, not only as regarded its outside with all the diamonds, but the inside, too. “Because,” said he, “we never know what song is coming next from the real nightingale, but with the artificial one everything is decided beforehand. So it is, and so it must remain; it can’t be otherwise. You can open the bird, you can explain it, and show the ingenuity of it, how the wheels go, and how one note follows another.”
“Those are exactly my opinions,” they all said; and the music-master received permission to show the bird to the people on the following Sunday.