Imperial Majesty, that with the real nightingale you carn never be sure of what is coming; but with the artificial bird everything has been arranged beforehand. So what is coming, will come, and nothing else. Everything can be accounted for; it may be ripped open and will show what human thought and skill can do; you may see how the barrels are placed, how they are worked, and how one thing is the result of another."
"That's exactly what we have been thinking!" they all said. And the musical director got permission to show the bird to the people on the following Sunday. "They should also hear it sing," said the emperor. And they heard it, and were as pleased as if they had got too merry on strong tea, for that's quite Chinese, you know. They all exclaimed, "Oh!" and held up their forefingers and nodded their heads; but the poor fisherman, who had heard the real nightingale, said: "It sounds pretty enough, and it is very like the other; but there 's something wanting, I can't tell exactly what!"
The real nightingale was banished from the land.
The artificial bird was placed on a silk cushion close to the emperor's bed; all the presents which it had received, the gold and the precious stones, lay round about it, and its title had been raised to "Singer of the Imperial Toilet-table," to rank number One on the left side, for the emperor considered that the side nearest the heart was of most importance—for even an emperor has his heart on the left side.
And the musical director wrote five-and-twenty volumes about the artificial bird; they were very learned and long, and full of the most difficult Chinese words, and everybody said that they had read them and understood them, for otherwise they would, of course, have been stupid, and would then have had their stomachs punched. In this way a whole year passed by; the emperor, the court, and all the other Chinamen knew by heart every little note in the artificial bird's song, but just on that account they liked it best; they could now join in the song themselves, which they did. The boys in the street sang " Ze-ze-ze! Cluck-cluck-cluck!" and the emperor sang the same.—Yes, it was really delightful!
But one evening, when the artificial bird was singing its best, and the emperor lay in bed listening to it, something inside the bird went "pop"; a spring had broken, and, "whir-r-r," round went all the wheels, and then the music stopped.
The emperor jumped out of bed at once and called for his physician; but how could he be of any help? Then they fetched the watchmaker, and after a great deal of talking and a long and careful examination he got the bird into something like order, but he said it must not be used so much, for the pinions were so worn—and it was not possible to put in new ones — that one could not be sure of the music. This caused a great deal of sorrow in the land. Only once a year did they venture to let the
