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In the narrow, crooked street, among several shabby dwellings, stood a very tall and very narrow house, the framework of which had given so that it was out of joint in every direction. Only poor people lived here, and poorest of all were those who lived in the attic. Outside the small attic window an old, bent bird cage hung in the sunshine; it didnt even have a real bird glass, but had only a bottle neck, upside down, with a cork in its mouth, and filled with water. At the open window stood an old maid who had just been decking the cage with chickweed; the little canary in it hopped from perch to perch and sang with all his might.
Yes, you may well sing! said the Bottle Neck. Of course, it didnt say it audibly, as were able to, for a bottle neck cannot speak, but it thought it, just as when we humans speak inwardly. Yes, you may well sing you, with your limbs whole! But what if you had lost your lower half as I have, and had only a neck and a mouth left, and then had a cork stuffed into you! You certainly wouldnt sing then! But its good that somebody is pleased. I have no reason to sing, and I cant anyway; I could once, when I was a whole bottle, and someone rubbed me with a cork; they used to call me a real lark then, the grand lark. Didnt I sing that day in the woods when the furriers daughter became engaged? I can remember it as though it were yesterday. When I come to think of it, Ive lived through many things; Ive been through fire and water down in the black earth, and higher up than most people. And now I hang here on the outside of the cage in the air and sunshine. It might be worth while to hear my story, but Im not going to tell it aloud, because I cant!
And so it inwardly told, or thought, its story, which was a strange one, and in the meantime the little bird sang merrily, and people rode or walked through the streets down below. Each thought of his own story or didnt think at all; but, at any rate, the Bottle Neck was engrossed in thought.
It remembered the flaming furnace in the manufacturing plant, where it had been blown into existence. It still remembered how warm it was at first, how it looked into that roaring furnace, its birthplace, and longed to leap back into it. But then as it gradually cooled, it found itself well off where it was, standing in a long row with a whole regiment of brothers and sisters. All had been born from the same furnace, but some had been blown into champagne bottles, some into beer bottles, and that makes a difference. To be sure, as things happen in the world, a beer bottle may hold the costliest Lachryma Christi wine, while a champagne bottle may be filled with black ink; but what each one was born for may still be clearly seen in its form; nobility remains nobility, even with black ink inside.
All the bottles were soon packed up, our Bottle among them. Little did it think then that it would end as a bottle neck, serving as a bird glass, and yet that is an honorable existence its at least something. It did not see daylight again until it was unpacked, together with its comrades, in the cellar of a wine merchant; and then for the first time it was rinsed out that was an odd sensation. It then lay empty and corkless, and felt strangely dull, as if it lacked something, though it didnt know what. But then it was filled with good, glorious wine received a cork, and was sealed up; a label was pasted on it, Best Quality, and it felt as if it had been awarded the highest rating as the result of its examination though it had to be admitted that the wine was good, as well as the Bottle.
When one is young, one is a lyric poet! The Bottle was singing inwardly of things it knew nothing about green, sunlit mountains, where the vineyards grow, and where merry maidens and happy youths sing and kiss. Yes, it is wonderful to be alive! Indeed, the Bottle inwardly sang of all this, as do young poets, who frequently also know nothing about the things of which they sing.
One morning it was bought. The furriers boy had been sent to fetch a bottle of the best wine; and then it was packed into a large basket, together with ham, cheese, sausages, the best butter, and the finest bread. The furriers daughter herself packed the basket. She was so young, so pretty; her brown eyes laughed, and there was a smile on her lips, which seemed as expressive as her eyes. Her hands were small, soft, and white, but not so white as her forehead and throat. You could see at once that she was one of the prettiest girls in the village, and still she was not yet betrothed.
When the party drove out into the woods, the basket lay in her lap. The neck of the Bottle peeped out from the folds of the white tablecloth; the red sealing wax on the cork looked right in the face of the young girl and looked also at the young sailor who sat beside her. He had been her friend since childhood, and was a portrait painters son. He had recently passed his examination for the navel service with high honors, and on the next day he was to sail away, far away, to foreign lands. This had been spoken of during the packing of the basket, and it hadnt been quite so pleasant to look at the eyes and lips of the furriers pretty daughter while thered been talk of that.
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