The Nightingale

In China, the emperor's palace was the most splendid in the whole world. It was made of the finest porcelain, so delicate and beautiful that one had to be very careful not to touch it. In the garden grew the most marvelous flowers, and the finest of them all were attached to little silver bells that tinkled so prettily that passersby could not help but notice them. Beyond the gardens stretched a great forest, and in that forest lived a little nightingale whose song was so beautiful that even the poor fisherman paused to listen as he drew in his nets. Travelers from every country came to hear her sing, and they all declared she was the finest thing in all the empire.

One day the emperor read about this nightingale in a book written by foreign travelers. He summoned his courtiers and commanded them to find the bird. After much searching through the kitchens and corridors, a little kitchen girl led them to the forest, where the nightingale sang. The courtiers begged the bird to come to the palace and sing for the emperor. The nightingale agreed, for she sang best when she was free. When she sang at court, the emperor was so moved that tears came to his eyes, and he declared the nightingale the greatest treasure of his kingdom. He gave her a golden perch and his own golden slipper to wear around her neck, but the nightingale declined, saying her reward was seeing the tears in the emperor's eyes.

Not long after, the emperor of Japan sent a magnificent gift: a mechanical nightingale encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. The artificial bird sang the same waltz thirty-four times without stopping and looked far more splendid than the plain grey real bird. The courtiers and the emperor were enchanted by the clockwork bird, for it was beautiful and reliable, and it never varied its tune. The real nightingale, neglected and forgotten, flew away from the palace and back to the green forest. No one noticed she had gone.

A whole year passed. The emperor and all his court preferred the mechanical bird, which played its tune exactly the same way every time. The music master wrote twenty-five volumes of criticism praising the artificial bird's mechanical precision above the real nightingale's variable performance. But one evening, when the clockwork bird was singing its most brilliant passage, there was a sudden pop and a whirr. Something inside the bird had broken. The emperor's personal physicians were summoned, but they could do nothing. The clockmaker examined the bird and said its gears were worn out and could not be repaired. The bird could be played only once a year now, and even then with great caution.

The emperor grew terribly sad without his music. Then, one cold winter night, the emperor lay gravely ill in his great bed. Pale and ghostly figures gathered around him: Death himself sat upon the emperor's chest, wearing his golden crown, and strange faces peered down from the heavy velvet curtains, each whispering of the emperor's deeds, both good and evil. The emperor gasped for breath and cried out for music, something to drown out the whispers. But the mechanical bird was silent. No one had wound it.

Then, through the open window, there came the most glorious song. The real nightingale had heard of the emperor's illness and had come to sing for him once more. Her song was so beautiful that even Death himself listened. She sang of the quiet churchyard where white roses bloom, where the fresh grass grows, where the sunshine warms the earth. Death longed for his garden and rose slowly from the emperor's chest, floating out of the window like a cold white mist. The emperor revived and thanked the nightingale with all his heart. He begged her to stay with him forever. But the nightingale said she could not live in a cage. She would come and sing freely, sitting on the branch outside the emperor's window, singing of those who are happy and those who suffer, of the good and the evil that surround us. She asked only one thing: that the emperor keep her in his heart, and say nothing of her return.