For a long, long time the Nightingale sang every evening to the Emperor and his court, and they liked her so much that the ladies all tried to sing like her; they used to put water in their mouths and then make little sounds like this:  glu-glu-glug.  And when the courtiers met each other in the halls, one would say “Night,” and the other would say “ingale,” and that was supposed to be conversation.

At last, one day, there came a little package to the Emperor, on the outside of which was written, “The Nightingale.”  Inside was an artificial bird, something like a Nightingale, only it was made of gold, and silver, and rubies, and emeralds, and diamonds.  When it was wound up it played a waltz tune, and as it played it moved its little tail up and down.  Everybody in the court was filled with delight at the music of the new nightingale.  They made it sing that same tune thirty-three times, and still they had not had enough.  They would have made it sing the tune thirty-four times, but the Emperor said, “I should like to hear the real Nightingale sing, now.”

But when they looked about for the real little Nightingale, they could not find her anywhere!  She had taken the chance, while everybody was listening to the waltz tunes, to fly away through the window to her own greenwood.

“What a very ungrateful bird!” said the lords and ladies.  “But it does not matter; the new nightingale is just as good.”

So the artificial nightingale was given the real Nightingale’s little gold perch, and every night the Emperor wound her up, and she sang waltz tunes to him.  The people in the court liked her even better than the old Nightingale, because they could all whistle her tunes,—­which you can’t do with real nightingales.

About a year after the artificial nightingale came, the Emperor was listening to her waltz tune, when there was a snap and whir-r-r inside the bird, and the music stopped.  The Emperor ran to his doctor, but he could not do anything.  Then he ran to his clock-maker, but he could not do much.  Nobody could do much.  The best they could do was to patch the gold nightingale up so that it could sing once a year; even that was almost too much, and the tune was very shaky.  Still, the Emperor kept the gold nightingale on the perch in his own room.

A long time went by, and then, at last, the Emperor grew very ill, and was about to die.  When it was sure that he could not live much longer, the people chose a new emperor and waited for the old one to die.  The poor Emperor lay, quite cold and pale, in his great big bed, with velvet curtains and tall candlesticks all about.  He was quite alone, for all the courtiers had gone to congratulate the new emperor, and all the servants had gone to talk it over.