sweetly, if thou canst sleep!
Now it is morning.
The new time flings sunshine into the room. The wind still keeps
up mightily. A wreck is announced- as in the old time.
During the night, down yonder by Lokken, the little fishing
village with the red-tiled roofs- we can see it up here from the
window- a ship has come ashore. It has struck, and is fast embedded in
the sand; but the rocket apparatus has thrown a rope on board, and
formed a bridge from the wreck to the mainland; and all on board are
saved, and reach the land, and are wrapped in warm blankets; and
to-day they are invited to the farm at the convent of Borglum. In
comfortable rooms they encounter hospitality and friendly faces.
They are addressed in the language of their country, and the piano
sounds for them with melodies of their native land; and before these
have died away, the chord has been struck, the wire of thought that
reaches to the land of the sufferers announces that they are
rescued. Then their anxieties are dispelled; and at even they join
in the dance at the feast given in the great hall at Borglum.
Waltzes and Styrian dances are given, and Danish popular songs, and
melodies of foreign lands in these modern times.
Blessed be thou, new time! Speak thou of summer and of purer
gales! Send thy sunbeams gleaming into our hearts and thoughts! On thy
glowing canvas let them be painted- the dark legends of the rough hard
times that are past!
THE END
.
1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
THE BOTTLE NECK
by Hans Christian Andersen
CLOSE to the corner of a street, among other abodes of poverty,
stood an exceedingly tall, narrow house, which had been so knocked
about by time that it seemed out of joint in every direction. This
house was inhabited by poor people, but the deepest poverty was
apparent in the garret lodging in the gable. In front of the little
window, an old bent bird-cage hung in the sunshine, which had not even
a proper water-glass, but instead of it the broken neck of a bottle,
turned upside down, and a cork stuck in to make it hold the water with
which it was filled. An old maid stood at the window; she had hung
chickweed over the cage, and the little linnet which it contained
hopped from perch to perch and sang and twittered merrily.
"Yes, it's all very well for you to sing," said the bottle neck:
that is, he did not really speak the words as we do, for the neck of a
bottle cannot speak; but he thought them to himself in his own mind,
just as people sometimes talk quietly to themselves.
"Yes, you may sing very well, you have all your limbs uninjured;
you should feel what it is like to lose your body, and only have a
neck and a mouth left, with a cork stuck in it, as I have: you
wouldn't sing then, I know. After all, it is just as well that there
are some who can be happy. I have no reason to sing, nor could I
sing now if I were ever so happy; but when I was a whole bottle, and
they rubbed me with a cork, didn't I sing then? I used to be called
a complete lark. I remember when I went out to a picnic with the
furrier's family, on the day his daughter was betrothed,- it seems
as if it only happened yesterday. I have gone through a great deal
in my time, when I come to recollect: I have been in the fire and in
the water, I have been deep in the earth, and have mounted higher in
the air than most other people, and now I am swinging here, outside
a bird-cage, in the air and the sunshine. Oh, indeed, it would be
worth while to hear my history; but I do not speak it aloud, for a
good reason- because I cannot."
Then the bottle neck related his history, which was really
rather remarkable; he, in fact, related it to himself, or, at least,
thought it in his own mind. The little bird sang his own song merrily;
in the street below there was driving and running to and fro, every
one thought of his own affairs, or perhaps of nothing at all; but
the bottle neck thought deeply. He thought of the blazing furnace in
the factory, where he had been blown into life; he remembered how
hot it felt when he was placed in the heated oven, the home from which
he sprang, and that he had a strong inclination to leap out again
directly; but after a while it became cooler, and he found himself
very comfortable. He had been placed in a row, with a whole regiment
of his brothers and sisters all brought out of the same furnace;
some of them had certainly been blown into champagne bottles, and
others into beer bottles, which made a little difference between them.
In the world it often happens that a beer bottle may contain the
most precious wine, and a champagne bottle be filled with blacking,
but even in decay it may always be seen whether a man has been well
born. Nobility remains noble, as a champagne bottle remains the
same, even with blacking in its interior. When the bottles were packed
our bottle was packed amongst them; it little expected then to
finish its career as a bottle neck, or to be used as a water-glass
to a bird's-cage, which is, after all, a place of honor, for it is
to be of some use in the world. The bottle did not behold the light of
day again, until it was unpacked with the rest in the wine
merchant's cellar, and, for the first time, rinsed with water, which
caused some very curious sensations. There it lay empty, and without a
cork, and it had a peculiar feeling, as if it wanted something it knew
not what. At last it was filled with rich and costly wine, a cork
was placed in it, and sealed down. Then it was labelled "first
quality," as if it had carried off the first prize at an
examination; besides, the wine and the bottle were both good, and
while we are young is the time for poetry. There were sounds of song
within the bottle, of things it could not understand, of green sunny
mountains, where the vines grow and where the merry vine-dressers
laugh, sing, and are merry. "Ah, how beautiful is life." All these
tones of joy and song in the bottle were like the working of a young
poet's brain, who often knows not the meaning of the tones which are
sounding within him. One morning the bottle found a purchaser in the
furrier's apprentice, who was told to bring one of the best bottles of
wine. It was placed in the provision basket with ham and cheese and
sausages. The sweetest fresh butter and the finest bread were put into
the basket by the furrier's daughter herself, for she packed it. She
was young and pretty; her brown eyes laughed, and a smile lingered
round her mouth as sweet as that in her eyes. She had delicate
hands, beautifully white, and her neck was whiter still. It could
easily be seen that she was a very lovely girl, and as yet she was not
engaged. The provision basket lay in the lap of the young girl as
the family drove out to the forest, and the neck of the bottle
peeped out from between the folds of the white napkin. There was the
red wax on the cork, and the bottle looked straight at the young
girl's face, and also at the face of the young sailor who sat near
her. He was a young friend, the son of a portrait painter. He had
lately passed his examination with honor, as mate, and the next
morning he was to sail in his ship to a distant coast. There had
been a great deal of talk on this subject while the basket was being
packed, and during this conversation the eyes and the mouth of the
furrier's daughter did not wear a very joyful expression. The young
people wandered away into the green wood, and talked together. What
did they talk about? The bottle could not say, for he was in the
provision basket. It remained there a long time; but when at last it
was brought forth it appeared as if something pleasant had happened,
for every one was laughing; the furrier's daughter laughed too, but
she said very little, and her cheeks were like two roses. Then her
father took the bottle and the cork-screw into his hands. What a
strange sensation it was to have the cork drawn for the first time!
The bottle could never after that forget the performance of that
moment; indeed there was quite a convulsion within him as the cork
flew out, and a gurgling sound as the wine was poured forth into the
glasses.
"Long life to the betrothed," cried the papa, and every glass
was emptied to the dregs, while the young sailor kissed his
beautiful bride.
"Happiness and blessing to you both," said the old people-father
and mother, and the young man filled the glasses again.
"Safe return, and a wedding this day next year," he cried; and
when the glasses were empty he took the bottle, raised it on high, and
said, "Thou hast been present here on the happiest day of my life;
thou shalt never be used by others!" So saying, he hurled it high in
the air.
The furrier's daughter thought she should never see it again,
but she was mistaken. It fell among the rushes on the borders of a
little woodland lake. The bottle neck remembered well how long it
lay there unseen. "I gave them wine, and they gave me muddy water," he
had said to himself, "but I suppose it was all well meant." He could
no longer see the betrothed couple, nor the cheerful old people; but
for a long time he could hear them rejoicing and singing. At length
there came by two peasant boys, who peeped in among the reeds and
spied out the bottle. Then they took it up and carried it home with
them, so that once more it was provided for. At home in their wooden
cottage these boys had an elder brother, a sailor, who was about to
start on a long voyage. He had been there the day before to say
farewell, and his mother was now very busy packing up various things
for him to take with him on his voyage. In the evening his father
was going to carry the parcel to the town to see his son once more,
and take him a farewell greeting from his mother. A small bottle had
already been filled with herb tea, mixed with brandy, and wrapped in a
parcel; but when the boys came in they brought with them a larger
and stronger bottle, which they had found. This bottle would hold so
much more than the little one, and they all said the brandy would be
so good for complaints of the stomach, especially as it was mixed with
medical herbs. The liquid which they now poured into the bottle was
not like the red wine with which it had once been filled; these were
bitter drops, but they are of great use sometimes-for the stomach. The
new large bottle was to go, not the little one: so the bottle once
more started on its travels. It was taken on board (for Peter Jensen
was one of the crew) the very same ship in which the young mate was to
sail. But the mate did not see the bottle: indeed, if he had he
would not have known it, or supposed it was the one out of which
they had drunk to the felicity of the betrothed and to the prospect of
a marriage on his own happy return. Certainly the bottle no longer
poured forth wine, but it contained something quite as good; and so it
happened that whenever Peter Jensen brought it out, his messmates gave
it the name of "the apothecary," for it contained the best medicine to
cure the stomach, and he gave it out quite willingly as long as a drop
remained. Those were happy days, and the bottle would sing when rubbed
with a cork, and it was called a great lark," "Peter Jensen's lark."
Long days and months rolled by, during which the bottle stood
empty in a corner, when a storm arose- whether on the passage out or
home it could not tell, for it had never been ashore. It was a
terrible storm, great waves arose, darkly heaving and tossing the
vessel to and fro. The main mast was split asunder, the ship sprang
a leak, and the pumps became useless, while all around was black as
night. At the last moment, when the ship was sinking, the young mate
wrote on a piece of paper, "We are going down: God's will be done."
Then he wrote the name of his betrothed, his own name, and that of the
ship. Then he put the leaf in an empty bottle that happened to be at
hand, corked it down tightly, and threw it into the foaming sea. He
knew not that it was the very same bottle from which the goblet of joy
and hope had once been filled for him, and now it was tossing on the
waves with his last greeting, and a message from the dead. The ship
sank, and the crew sank with her; but the bottle flew on like a
bird, for it bore within it a loving letter from a loving heart. And
as the sun rose and set, the bottle felt as at the time of its first
existence, when in the heated glowing stove it had a longing to fly
away. It outlived the storms and the calm, it struck against no rocks,
was not devoured by sharks, but drifted on for more than a year,
sometimes towards the north, sometimes towards the south, just as
the current carried it. It was in all other ways its own master, but
even of that one may get tired. The written leaf, the last farewell of
the bridegroom to his bride, would only bring sorrow when once it
reached her hands; but where were those hands, so soft and delicate,
which had once spread the table-cloth on the fresh grass in the
green wood, on the day of her betrothal? Ah, yes! where was the
furrier's daughter? and where was the land which might lie nearest
to her home?
The bottle knew not, it travelled onward and onward, and at last
all this wandering about became wearisome; at all events it was not
its usual occupation. But it had to travel, till at length it
reached land- a foreign country. Not a word spoken in this country
could the bottle understand; it was a language it had never before
heard, and it is a great loss not to be able to understand a language.
The bottle was fished out of the water, and examined on all sides. The
little letter contained within it was discovered, taken out, and
turned and twisted in every direction; but the people could not
