So the people saw the imitation nightingale and heard it sing, and they were all very enthusiastic over it, and they all said, “Oh!” and stuck their forefingers up into the air and nodded their heads.
But the poor fishermen who had heard the real bird said: “The song of this bird is very nice, and it is much like that of the live bird, but there is something wanting—we don’t know what.”
The real nightingale was banished from the empire, while the artificial bird was given a place on a silk cushion close to the emperor’s bed. All the presents which it had received lay around it, and the title of Chief Imperial Singer of the Bedchamber on the Left Side was conferred on it. The emperor considered the left side, where the heart is, the more important, for even an emperor has his heart on the left side just like other people.
A treatise in twenty-five volumes was written by the music-master about the artificial bird, and this treatise was so learned and long, and so full of the most difficult Chinese words, that all the people said they had read and understood it, for otherwise they would have been thought stupid.
A year passed, and the emperor and his court and all the other Chinamen knew every little gurgle in the song of the artificial bird. That was why it pleased them. They could sing with it, and often did so. Even the street boys sang: “Tsee, tsee, tsee! Cluck, cluck, cluck!” and the emperor did just the same. It really was most enjoyable.
But one evening, when the bird was singing its best, and the emperor was lying in bed listening to it, something inside of the bird gave way with a sudden snap. Then whir-r-r went all the wheels, and the music stopped.
The emperor jumped out of bed and sent for his private physicians, but what good could they do? They had a watchmaker come, and after a good deal of talking and examining and tinkering he got the works to go again somehow. But he said the bird must be used sparingly, for the works were much worn, and he could not renew them so as to be sure that the music would go right. This caused great sorrow. The imitation bird could only be allowed to sing once a year. Each time the music-master made a little speech full of difficult words, and affirmed that the singing was just as good as ever. After being thus reassured the court listened to the bird with all their former pleasure.
At the end of five years a great grief came on the nation. The Chinese were all very fond of their emperor, and now he was ill, and it was reported that he had not long to live. A new emperor had been selected, and would be proclaimed ruler of the empire as soon as the old emperor was dead. Cloth had been laid down in all the rooms and corridors to deaden the sound of footsteps, and the palace was very, very quiet. Outside, about the entrance, many people had gathered, and they asked the chamberlain how their emperor was getting on.
“Pooh!” he said, and shook his head.
Pale and motionless lay the emperor in his great splendid bed, and presently the courtiers thought he was dead. So they all went away to pay their respects to the new emperor. The pages ran out to gossip about it, and the chambermaids had a grand teaparty.