The thrush was a modest and studious person, who led a strictly solitary life; he had no acquaintances (many even believed him to be a drunkard, like all very learned persons), but would sit for whole days alone upon a fir-branch, cramming up information. He managed to plod through a perfect desert of historical investigations: “The Ancestral Records of a Bogie,” “Was the old Woman who rode on a Broomstick married?” “What Sex should be ascribed to Witches in the Register-Papers?” and so forth. But, however hard the poor bird crammed, he could not find a publisher for his pamphlets. At last it occurred to him too: “I’ll engage myself as Court-Historiographer to the Eagle; perhaps he will print my investigations in rook’s dung!”
As for the nightingale, he couldn’t complain of the cruelty of fate; he sang so exquisitely that not only the mighty fir-trees, but even the Moscow shopkeepers were quite touched when they heard him. All the world adored him; all the world held its breath to listen when he poured out torrents of divine song from among the branches of some silent grove. But the nightingale was ambitious beyond measure, and desperately given to falling in love. He was not content with making the forest ring with his wild melodies, or filling sad hearts with the harmony of sound ... he kept on thinking how the Eagle would hang round his neck a shining chain of ants’ eggs, and decorate his breast with live beetles, and how the female Eagle would appoint secret meetings with him by moonlight.... In short, all three birds gave the falcon no peace till he undertook to speak on their behalf.
The Eagle listened attentively to the falcon’s assurances of the necessity of encouraging science and art; but did not quite understand. He sat sharpening his claws, and his eyes flashed back the sunlight like polished gems. He had never seen a newspaper in his life; he had never taken the slightest interest in either witches or the old woman who rode on a broomstick; and about the nightingale he had only heard that it was a little bit of a bird not worth soiling one’s beak over.
“I daresay you don’t even know that Buonaparte is dead,” said the falcon.
“Who was Buonaparte?”
“There you are! And you certainly ought to know about that. Supposing visitors come and begin a polite conversation; they’ll say: ‘In Buonparte’s days so-and-so happened’; and you’ll just have to sit and blink your eyes. That won’t do.”
They called in the owl as adviser, and she agreed with the falcon that science and art must be introduced into the establishment; for they amuse Eagles, and it does ordinary mortals no harm to enjoy them from a distance either. Knowledge is light, and ignorance is darkness. Any fool knows how to eat and sleep; but just try and work out a problem; take the one about the flock of geese, for instance, that’s a very different matter. In the old days the clever landowners understood that; they knew that forewarned was forearmed; they were sharp enough to see which side their bread was buttered. Just take the case of the finch: all the learning he has is how to draw water in a little bucket, and yet see what a high price he fetches just for that one trick! “I,” concluded the owl, “can see in the dark, and I am called wise for that; now, you can stare at the sun for hours together without ever blinking; and all people say about you is: ‘That Eagle’s a bit of a blockhead.’”
“Well, I have no objection to science,” said the Eagle, rather snappishly.
No sooner said than done. On the next day the “Golden Age” began in the Eagle’s establishment. The starlings set to work to learn by heart the hymn: “Let our youth be fed with science”; the corn-crakes and mud-suckers began practising the trumpet; the parrots invented new tricks. A new tax was laid upon the rooks, to be called “Public Instruction Tax.” A Corps des Cadets was founded for fledgling falcons and vultures; and an Academy of Science for owls. They even went the length of buying a farthing alphabet apiece for the baby rooks. Last but not least, the oldest patriarch among the starlings was appointed poet-laureate, with the honorary title of “Vasìli Kirìlych Trediakòvsky,”[[61]] and commanded to prepare for a public competition with the nightingale, to be held on the next morning.
At last the great day dawned. The newly-elected flunkeys were admitted into the presence of the Eagle, and the tournament of arts began.