Prevod

In a narrow, crooked street, among a number of poor houses, stood one so slender and so tall, built of timber framing that had sagged at every corner. Poor people lived here, and nowhere did things look poorer than in the attic, where an old, battered birdcage hung in the sunshine outside the little window. It did not even have a proper drinking glass, only an upturned bottle neck, corked at the bottom and filled with water. An old maid stood at the open window. She had just adorned the cage with chickweed, and inside it a little linnet hopped from perch to perch and sang till the air rang.

“Yes, it is easy enough for you to sing!” said the bottle neck. Of course, it did not say this as we might say it, for a bottle neck cannot speak; but it thought it to itself, just as we human beings speak inwardly. “Yes, it is easy enough for you to sing! You have all your limbs. You should try losing your lower half, as I have, and having nothing left but a neck and a mouth, with a cork in it at that, like mine; then you would not sing. Still, it is a good thing somebody is happy! I have no reason to sing, and I cannot do it either! I could once, when I was a whole bottle and they rubbed me with a cork; they called me a real lark, the great lark! And then, when I went into the woods with the furrier’s family, and the daughter was betrothed—yes, I remember that as though it were yesterday! I have been through a great deal, when I come to think of it! I have been through fire and water, down in the black earth and higher up than most, and now I hang outside the birdcage in the air and sunshine! My story might well be worth hearing, but I do not tell it aloud, for I cannot!”

And so it told itself, or thought to itself, its own story, which was remarkable enough; and the little bird merrily sang its song, while down in the street people drove and walked, each thinking of their own affairs, or not thinking at all. But the bottle neck was thinking.

It remembered the blazing furnace at the factory, where it had been blown into life; it still remembered being quite hot, looking into the roaring furnace, the home of its birth, and feeling such a longing to leap straight back into it. But little by little, as it cooled, it had grown quite content where it was, standing in a row with a whole regiment of brothers and sisters, all from the same furnace. Some, however, had been blown into champagne bottles, and others into beer bottles, and that makes a difference! Later, out in the world, a beer bottle may indeed contain the costliest Lacrymæ Christi, and a champagne bottle may be filled with blacking; but what one is born to be can still be seen in one’s shape. Nobility remains nobility, even with blacking in its belly.

Soon all the bottles were packed up, and ours along with them. It never thought then that it would end as a bottle neck, working its way up to a bird’s drinking glass, which is always a respectable existence: at least one is something! It did not see daylight again until it was unpacked with its companions in the wine merchant’s cellar and rinsed for the first time. That was a curious sensation. Now it lay empty and uncorked, feeling strangely flat; it lacked something, though it did not know what. Then it was filled with a fine, glorious wine, corked and sealed with wax, and a label was pasted on it: “First Quality.” It was just as though it had earned top marks in an examination. But the wine was good, and the bottle was good too; when one is young, one is a lyric poet! Within it there sang and rang things it knew nothing whatever about: the green, sunlit mountains where the vines grow, where merry girls and happy lads sing and kiss. Ah, it is lovely to be alive! All this sang and rang inside the bottle, just as it does inside young poets, who often know no more about it themselves.

One morning it was bought. The furrier’s boy had been sent for a bottle of the very best wine, and it went into the picnic basket with ham, cheese, and sausage. There was the loveliest butter and the finest bread; the furrier’s daughter packed it all herself. She was so young and so pretty; her brown eyes laughed, and the smile about her mouth said as much as her eyes. She had delicate, soft hands, so white, though her neck and bosom were whiter still. One could see at once that she was one of the prettiest girls in town, and yet she was not engaged.

The picnic basket rested on her lap as the family drove out to the woods. The bottle neck peeped out between the folds of the white cloth; there was red sealing wax over its cork, and it looked straight into the young girl’s face. It also looked at the young mate sitting beside her. He was a childhood friend, the portrait painter’s son; he had recently passed his mate’s examination with great credit and was to sail the next day, far away to foreign lands. There had been much talk of this while the basket was being packed, and while they spoke of it there was little sign of pleasure in the eyes or about the mouth of the furrier’s pretty daughter.

The two young people walked in the green woods and talked together—but what did they talk about? The bottle did not hear, for it stood in the picnic basket. It seemed an extraordinarily long time before it was taken out, but by then happy things had happened. Everyone’s eyes were laughing, and the furrier’s daughter laughed too, though she spoke less, and her cheeks glowed like two red roses.

Father took the full bottle and the corkscrew. Ah, it is a strange thing to be uncorked for the first time! The bottle neck had never since forgotten that solemn moment. There had been a proper pop inside it as the cork came out, and then a gurgling as the wine flowed into the glasses.

“To the betrothed!” said Father, and every glass was drained to the bottom, and the young mate kissed his lovely bride-to-be. “Happiness and blessings!” said both the parents. And the young man filled the glasses once more. “Homecoming and wedding, a year from today!” he cried, and when the glasses were empty, he took the bottle and raised it high in the air. “You have shared the happiest day of my life; you shall serve no one else!”

And he flung it high into the air. Little did the furrier’s daughter think that she would see it fly again, but she would. Now it fell among the thick reeds beside the little woodland lake. The bottle neck still remembered vividly how it had lain there, reflecting. “I gave them wine, and they give me swamp water, but they mean well!” It could no longer see the betrothed couple and the happy parents, but for a long time it could still hear their rejoicing and singing. Then two little peasant boys came along, peered into the reeds, saw the bottle, and took it. Now it was provided for.

At their home in the woods, their eldest brother, who was a sailor, had come the day before to say farewell, for he was leaving on a long voyage. Their mother was now packing a few things for their father to take into town that evening, when he would see their son once more before he sailed and give him his parents’ greetings. A little bottle of spiced spirits had been put in the parcel; now the boys arrived with a larger, stronger bottle, the one they had found. It would hold more than the little one, and this was just the sort of good dram for an upset stomach: St. John’s wort had been steeped in it. It was not red wine the bottle received this time, but bitter drops; still, they are good too—for the stomach. The new bottle was to go instead of the little one. And so the bottle set out on its travels again and went aboard to Peter Jensen, on the very same ship as the young mate. But he did not see the bottle, nor would he have recognized it or thought, “That is the one from which we drank to our betrothal and homecoming.”

There was certainly no wine left in it now, but there was something just as good. Whenever Peter Jensen brought it out, his shipmates called it “the Apothecary”; it poured out the good medicine that helped the stomach, and it went on helping as long as there was a drop left in it. Those were merry times, and the bottle sang when they rubbed it with the cork. It was then given the name of the great lark, “Peter Jensen’s lark.”

A long time had passed, and it stood empty in a corner, when it happened—whether on the outward or the homeward voyage, the bottle did not quite know, for it had never been ashore. A storm arose. Great seas rolled up, black and heavy, lifting and tossing the vessel; the mast snapped, a wave stove in a plank, and the pumps could do no more. It was pitch-dark night. The ship was sinking, but at the last moment the young mate wrote on a scrap of paper, “In Jesus’ name! We are going down!” He wrote his bride-to-be’s name, his own, and the ship’s, slipped the note into an empty bottle standing nearby, pressed the cork in firmly, and threw the bottle into the stormy sea. He did not know that this was the bottle from which the toast of joy and hope had been poured for him and her. Now it rocked upon the waves, bearing a greeting and tidings of death.

The ship went down, the crew went down, but the bottle flew like a bird; it had a heart within it, after all—a love letter. And the sun rose and the sun set; to the bottle it looked like the red, glowing furnace of its earliest days, and it longed to fly back into it. It knew calm seas and fresh storms; it struck no rock and was swallowed by no shark. For more than a year and a day it drifted about, now north, now south, wherever the currents carried it. Otherwise it was its own master, but one can grow tired even of that.

The written scrap, the last farewell from bridegroom to bride, would bring only sorrow if it ever reached the right hands. But where were those hands that had shone so white as they spread the cloth on the fresh grass in the green woods on the day of the betrothal? Where was the furrier’s daughter? Indeed, where was the land, and what country lay nearest? The bottle did not know. It drifted and drifted, and at last grew tired of drifting too. This was not what it had been made for, but still it drifted, until at length it reached land, a foreign land. It did not understand a word that was spoken there; this was not the language it had heard before, and one misses a great deal when one does not understand the language.

The bottle was picked up and examined. The note inside was noticed, taken out, and turned this way and that, but they could not understand what was written on it. They gathered that the bottle had been thrown overboard and that the paper said something about it, but what it said was the mystery. So the note was put back into the bottle, and the bottle was placed in a large cupboard, in a large room, in a large house.

Whenever visitors came, the note was taken out and turned this way and that, until the writing, which was only in pencil, grew more and more illegible. In the end, no one could even see that the marks were letters. The bottle stood another year in the cupboard, then went up into the attic and was hidden by dust and cobwebs. There it thought of better days, when it had poured red wine in the fresh green woods, and when it had rocked upon the waves with a secret to carry, a letter, a sigh of farewell.

And now it stood in the attic for twenty years. It might have stood there longer if the house had not been rebuilt. The roof was taken off, the bottle was noticed and spoken about, but it did not understand the language. One does not learn it by standing in an attic, even for twenty years. “If I had stayed downstairs in the room,” it thought, “I should surely have learned it!”

Now it was washed and rinsed, and it needed it. It felt quite clear and transparent; it was young again in its old age. But the note it had carried was lost in the washing.

The bottle was now filled with seeds of a kind it did not know. It was corked and carefully wrapped up, and saw neither lamp nor candle, much less sun or moon. One ought to see something when one goes travelling, the bottle thought; but it saw nothing. Still, it did the most important thing: it travelled and arrived where it was meant to go, and there it was unpacked.

“What trouble they have taken over it abroad!” someone said. “And I dare say it is broken after all!” But it was not broken. The bottle understood every single word they said. It was the language it had heard at the furnace and the wine merchant’s, in the woods and aboard the ship: the only proper, good old language, the one one could understand. It had come home to its own country and was being welcomed! In its joy it nearly leapt out of their hands. It scarcely noticed the cork being drawn, its contents being shaken out, and itself being put down in the cellar, to be kept and forgotten. Home is best, even in a cellar! It never occurred to it to wonder how long it lay there. It lay comfortably, and did so for years; then one day people came down, took the bottles, and took it along with them.

Outside in the garden, splendid preparations had been made. Burning lamps hung in garlands, and paper lanterns glowed like great translucent tulips. It was a lovely evening too, the weather calm and clear; the stars shone brightly, and the new moon had been lit. In fact, the whole round moon could be seen, like a blue-grey ball with a golden rim along one side. It was a fine sight, for good eyes.

The secluded paths had some illumination too, at least enough to see one’s way. Bottles had been set out between the hedges, each with a candle in it, and among them stood the bottle we know, the one that would someday end as a bottle neck, a bird’s drinking glass. At that moment it found everything incomparably lovely. It was among green things again, sharing once more in joy and festivity, hearing song and music, the hum and murmur of the many people, especially from the part of the garden where the lamps burned and the paper lanterns shone in their colours. It stood in a secluded path, to be sure, but that in itself gave it something to reflect on. There it stood, bearing its light, useful and giving pleasure, and that is as it should be. In such an hour one forgets twenty years in an attic—and it is good to forget.

A couple passed close beside it, arm in arm, like the betrothed pair in the woods, the mate and the furrier’s daughter. To the bottle it was as though it were living it all over again! Guests were walking in the garden, and so were people who were allowed in to look at them and the splendour. Among these walked an old maid, without kin but not without friends. She was thinking of the very same things as the bottle: of the green woods and a young betrothed couple who were very close to her heart. She had been part of that couple, half of it herself, in her happiest hour; and one never forgets that, however old a maid one may become. But she did not recognize the bottle, and it did not recognize her. So we pass one another in this world—until we meet again, as these two did, for they had come to live in the same town.

From the garden the bottle went to the wine merchant’s, was filled with wine again, and sold to the aeronaut, who was to go up in his balloon the following Sunday. A crowd had gathered to watch; there was a regimental band and a great deal of preparation. The bottle saw it all from a basket, where it lay beside a live rabbit that was quite downcast, knowing it was to go up only to come down by parachute. The bottle knew nothing of going up or coming down. It saw the balloon swelling bigger and bigger, and when it could grow no bigger, it began to rise higher and higher, tugging restlessly. The ropes that held it were cut, and it floated away with the aeronaut, the basket, the bottle, and the rabbit. The music sounded, and everyone shouted, “Hurrah!”

“What a curious thing it is to rise into the air like this!” thought the bottle. “This is a new sort of voyage; at least one cannot run aground up here!” Many thousands of people gazed after the balloon, and the old maid watched it too. She stood at her open attic window, where the cage hung with the little linnet, which at that time had no drinking glass but had to make do with a cup. In the window itself stood a myrtle tree; it had been moved a little to one side so that it would not be knocked out as the old maid leaned forward to look. And she could clearly see the aeronaut in the balloon as he sent the rabbit down by parachute, then drank a toast to everyone below and flung the bottle high into the air. It never occurred to her that she had seen this very bottle fly high in honour of herself and her beloved on that happy day in the green woods, in the days of her youth.

The bottle had no time to think; it had come so suddenly and unexpectedly to the highest point of its life. Towers and rooftops lay far below, and the people looked so very tiny.

Now it fell, and at quite a different speed from the rabbit. The bottle turned somersaults in the air; it felt so young, so wildly merry. It was half full of wine, but not for long. What a journey! The sun shone upon it, and everyone watched it. The balloon was already far away, and soon the bottle was gone too. It fell upon a roof and shattered, but the pieces had such momentum that they could not stay there. They bounced and rolled until they reached the courtyard below and lay in smaller pieces still. Only the bottle neck remained whole, as neatly severed as though cut with a diamond.

“That would make a fine drinking glass for a bird!” said the man from the basement. But he had neither bird nor cage himself, and it was too much to acquire them merely because he now had a bottle neck that could serve as a glass. The old maid in the attic might have a use for it, and so the bottle neck went upstairs. A cork was put in it, and what had once faced up now faced down, as so often happens when things change. It was filled with fresh water and hung in front of the cage for the little bird, which sang till the air rang.

“Yes, it is easy enough for you to sing!” was what the bottle neck said. And it was certainly remarkable: it had been up in a balloon—no more of its history was known. Now it hung there as a bird’s drinking glass, hearing people rumbling and bustling in the street below, and the old maid talking in her little room. She had a visitor, a woman friend of her own age, and they were talking—not about the bottle neck, but about the myrtle tree by the window.

“You certainly must not throw away two rigsdalers on a bridal bouquet for your daughter!” said the old maid. “You shall have a lovely one from me, full of blossoms! See how beautifully the tree is growing. Why, it is a cutting from the very myrtle tree you gave me the day after my betrothal, the one I was to take my own bridal bouquet from when the year was out. But that day never came! Those eyes were closed that should have shone upon me with joy and blessing in this life. At the bottom of the sea he sleeps so sweetly, that angel soul! The tree grew old, but I grew older still, and when it began to wither, I took its last fresh branch and planted it in the earth. Now that branch has grown into this great tree, and after all it will have a part in a wedding, as a bridal bouquet for your daughter!”

And tears stood in the old maid’s eyes. She spoke of the beloved of her youth, of their betrothal in the woods; she thought of the toast they had drunk, and of the first kiss—but that she did not mention, for she was an old maid, after all. She thought of so many things, but never once did she think that just outside her window there was yet another reminder of those days: the neck of the bottle that had gone pop when the cork flew out for the toast. But the bottle neck did not recognize her either, for it was not listening to what she said—partly on account of, and partly owing to, the fact that it was thinking only of itself.