Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/39

 Here was a cause for deep mourning! The artificial bird was now only to be heard once a year, and that was almost too often for its safety. But the conductor of the music made a speech, consisting of very hard words, in order to prove that it was just as good as ever; and so, of course, it was considered.

Five years had now flown past, when a real affliction threatened the land. The Chinese all loved their emperor, and he now lay so ill that it was said he could not recover. A new emperor was already chosen; and the people who stood outside in the street asked the lord-in-waiting how it fared with their old emperor? “P!” said he, shaking his head.

The emperor lay pale and cold in his fine large bed. The whole court thought he was dead, and everybody had run away from him to pay their respects to the new emperor. The valets had run away to prate about the event, and the chambermaids had a large company to coffee. Cloth coverings had been laid down in all the rooms and passages, that nobody's step might be heard, and therefore all was silent as the grave. But the emperor was not yet dead, though he lay stiff and pale in his magnificent bed, with its long velvet curtains and heavy gold tassels. High above was an open window, through which the moon shone down upon the emperor and the artificial bird.

The poor emperor could scarcely breathe; he felt as if a weight were lying on his chest, and on opening his eyes he saw that it was Death who was sitting on his breast, and had put on his gold crown, and was holding the imperial sword in one hand and his beautiful banner in the other. Strange heads were peeping out on all sides through the velvet bed-curtains, some of which were quite ugly, while others were mild and lovely. These were the emperor’s good and bad actions, which looked him in the face now that Death was at his heart.

“Do you remember this?” whispered one after another. “Do you remember that?” And they told him so many things that the perspiration stood on his brow.

“| never knew it,” said the emperor. “Music! music!—the large Chinese drum!” cried he, “to drown what they say!”

But they went on, and Death nodded to all they said, like a true Chinese.

“Music! music!” vociferated the emperor. “You little charming golden bird, sing away!—sing, can’t you? I have given you gold and precious stones, and I have even hung my golden slipper round your neck. Sing, I tell you, sing!”

But the bird remained silent. There was nobody there to wind it up, and without that it could not sing a note. And Death went on staring at the emperor with his hollow sockets, and a frightful stillness reigned around.

Suddenly a gust of melody sounded through the window. It proceeded from the little living nightingale who sat on a bough. She had heard of her emperor’s danger, and had hastened hither to sing hope and comfort to his soul. And as she sang, the phantoms grew fainter and fainter, while the blood began to circulate faster and faster through the emperor’s weak limbs, and even Death listened, and said, “Go on, little nightingale, go on.”

“But will you give me that costly golden sword? Will you give me that rich banner? Will you give me the emperor’s crown?”

And Death gave each of the baubles for a song, and the nightingale continued singing. She sang of the quiet churchyard, where the white roses blossom, where the elder sheds its perfumes, and where the cool grass is moistened by the tears of the survivors. Then Death longed to go to his garden, and he floated out through the window, like a cold, white mist.