He saw daylight again when the cases of bottles were unpacked in the wine merchant’s cellar. Now he was rinsed for the first time, that was a strange experience; then he was put on a shelf. There he lay empty and without a cork, he felt awkward; something was missing but he did not know quite what it was. Then the bottle was filled with wine, corked, and sealed. A label was pasted on it which said, “very fine quality.” The bottle felt as though he had passed an examination and received the highest grade. The wine was young and the bottle was young; and the young tend to be lyrical. All sorts of songs about things, that the bottle couldn’t possibly know a thing about, seemed to be humming inside him. He saw clearly the green sunlit mountains, where the grapes had grown, as well as the maidens and young men who had kissed each other while they picked the fruit. Oh yes, it is lovely to live! The bottle was filled with passion and love, just as young poets are before they know much about either.
One morning the bottle was sold. The tanner’s apprentice had been sent down to buy a flask of the “very best wine.” It was put into the picnic basket together with ham, cheese, sausage, the best-quality butter, and the finest bread. It was the tanner’s daughter who packed the basket. She was young and lovely, with a smile in her brown eyes and laughter on her lips. Her hands were soft and white, but the skin on her neck was even whiter. She was one of the most beautiful girls in the town and not yet engaged.
She had the picnic basket basket on her lap, while they drove out into the forest. The bottle peeped out through the snowy white tablecloth that covered the basket; his cork was covered by red sealing wax. He could look right into the face of the young girl and he saw, too, the young seaman who was sitting beside her. They had been friends since childhood. He was the son of a portrait painter. He had just received his mate’s license and was to sail the following day on a long voyage to foreign lands. While preparing the basket for the picnic they had talked about the voyage; and there had been no joy or laughter to be seen in the young girl’s face.
When they arrived in the forest the young couple went for a walk alone, and what did they talk about? Well, the bottle never knew, for he had stayed in the picnic basket. A very long time seemed to pass before he was taken out. But when it finally happened, something very pleasant seemed to have taken place. Everyone was smiling and laughing, the tanner’s daughter too. She didn’t say much, but two red roses were blooming on her cheeks.
The tanner took out his corkscrew and grabbed the bottle! It was a strange experience to be opened for the first time. The bottleneck had never forgotten that solemn moment when the cork was drawn and the wine streamed into the glasses.
“To the engaged couple!” toasted the tanner. They all emptied their glasses, and the young mate kissed his bride-to-be.
“Happiness and contentment!” exclaimed the old couple to the young.
The glasses were filled once more. “A happy homecoming and a wedding, a year from now!” shouted the young man. When they had drunk this toast, he grasped the now empty bottle. “You have been part of the happiest day of my life, you shall serve no one after that!”
The young mate threw the bottle high into the air. The tanner’s daughter followed it with her eyes; she could not know then that she would see the very same bottle fly through the air once more during her life. The bottle landed in a little pond in the woods. The bottleneck remembered it all very clearly; he could even recall what he had thought when he lay in the water! “I gave them wine, and they gave me swamp water in return, but they meant well.” The poor bottle could no longer see the picnic party, but heard them laughing and singing. Finally two little peasant boys came by, looked in among the reeds, noticed the bottle, picked it up; and now he had an owner again.
In the house in the woods, the oldest son had been home the day before; he was a seaman and was about to set out on a long voyage. His mother was making a package of one thing and another that she thought might be useful on so long a journey. His father would take it to the ship and give it to the lad together with his parents’ blessings. A little bottle of homemade liquor had already been filled; but when the boys entered with the larger and stronger bottle, the woman decided to put the liquor in that one instead. It was brewed from herbs and was especially good for the stomach. So the bottle was filled once more, this time not with red wine but with bitter medicine, and that was of the “very best” quality too.
Lying between a sausage and a cheese, it was delivered to Peter Jensen, who was the older brother of the two boys who had found the bottle. Now the ship’s mate was the very young man who had just become engaged to the tanner’s daughter. He did not see the bottle; and if he had, he would not have recognized it, or imagined that the very bottle that had contained the wine with which he had toasted to a happy homecoming could be on board his ship.
True, the bottle was no longer filled with wine, but what it contained was just as desirable to Peter Jensen and his friends. They called Peter the “apothecary,” for it was he who doled out the medicine that cured stomach-aches so pleasantly. Yes, that was a good period in the bottle’s life; but at last it was empty.
It had stood forgotten in a corner a long time; then the terrible tragedy occurred. Whether it happened on the journey out or on the return voyage was never clear to the bottle, since he had not gone ashore. The ship was caught in the midst of a storm; great heavy black waves broke over the railing and lifted and tossed the vessel; the mast broke; and a plank in the hull was pressed loose. The water poured in so fast that it was useless to try to pump it out. It was a dark night. In the last few minutes before the ship sank, the young mate wrote on a piece of paper, “In Jesus’ name, we are lost.” Then he added the name of the ship, his own name, and that of his sweetheart. He put the sheet of paper into an empty bottle he had found, corked it, and threw it into the raging sea. He did not know that he had once before held that bottle in his hands, on the day of his engagement.
The ship sank, the crew was lost, but the bottle floated like a gull on the waves. Now that he had a sad love letter inside him, he had a heart. The bottle watched the sun rise and set, thought that the red disk was like the opening of the oven in which he had been born; he longed to float right into it. Days of calm were followed by a storm. The bottle was not broken against a cliff-bound shore, nor was it swallowed by a shark.
For years it drifted, following the currents of the ocean toward the north and then toward the south. He was his own master, but that, too, can become tiresome in the long run.
The note, the last farewell from a bridegroom to his bride, would only bring pain if ever it were held by the hand it had been meant for. Where were they now, those little white hands that had spread the tablecloth on the green moss the day of the picnic? Where was the tanner’s daughter? Where was the country where it had happened? The bottle didn’t know, he just drifted with the waves and the wind. Although he was thoroughly tired of it; after all, that wasn’t what he was meant for. He had no choice in the matter, but finally he floated to shore. It was a foreign country, the bottle didn’t understand a word of what was said; and that was most irritating. You miss so much when you don’t understand the language.
The bottle was picked up, opened, and the note was taken out to be read. But the finder did not understand what was written on it; he turned the note both upside down and right side up, but he could not read it. He realized that the bottle had been thrown overboard and that the note was a message from a ship, but what it said remained a mystery to him. The note was put back in the bottle and the bottle put away in a closet.
Every time there were visitors the note was shown in the hope that someone could read it, but no one who came ever could. The note that had been written with pencil was made less and less legible by the many hands that held it. Finally the letters could no longer be seen and the bottle was put up in the attic. Spider webs and dust covered him, while he dreamed about the past: the good old days when he had been filled with wine and had been taken on a
picnic. Even the days on the ocean seemed pleasant now; the years when he had floated on the sea and had had a secret inside him: a letter, a sigh of farewell.
It remained in the attic twenty years and would have stayed there even longer had not the owner decided to enlarge his house. The whole roof was torn down. The bottle was brought out and the story of how it was found told once more. The bottle did not understand what was being said, for you don’t learn a language by standing twenty years in an attic. “If only they had allowed me to stay in the closet downstairs, then I would probably have learned it,” thought the bottle.
Once more he was washed and rinsed—and he certainly needed it. The bottle was so clean and transparent that he felt young in his old age; but the note had been lost in the process.
Now the bottle was filled up with seeds: what kind they were the bottle didn’t know. Again he was corked, and then wrapped in paper so tightly that not a bit of light came through. He could see neither the sun nor the moon; and the bottle felt that this was a great shame, for what is the point of traveling if you don’t see anything? But travel it did; and it arrived safely at its destination and was unpacked.
“They certainly have been careful”—the bottle heard someone say—“but I suppose it has broken anyway.” But the bottle was whole, and he understood every word that was said. They spoke his own language, the first one he had heard when he came red hot out of the melting pot: the language that had been spoken at the wine merchant’s, at the picnic, and on the ship—his native tongue, the one he understood! The bottle had come home! Oh, what a lovely welcome sound! The bottle nearly jumped for pure joy out of the hands that had picked him up. He hardly felt the cork being drawn and the seeds being shaken out, so happy was he!
He was put down in a cellar, again to be hidden and forgotten by the world. But it’s good to be home even when one has to stay in the cellar. The bottle did not even count the years and days he stayed there. Finally somebody came and removed all the bottles, himself included.
The garden outside the house had been decorated. Colored lamps hung from all the trees and bushes; they looked like shining tulips. It was a lovely evening, perfectly still, and the sky was filled with stars. There was a new moon, a tiny sliver of silver surrounding a pale disk; it was a beautiful sight for those who look at beauty.
The paths at the edges of the garden were illuminated too—at least, enough so you could find your way. In the spaces between the bushes of the hedge, bottles with candles in them had been placed. Here, too, stood the bottle that was fated to end as a birdbath. He found the whole affair marvelously to his taste; here he stood, among the greenery, attending a party; he could hear laughter and music and all the sounds of gaiety. True, it came mostly from another part of the garden, where the colored lamps were hung. He had been placed in the more lonesome area; but that gave the bottle more time for reflection. He felt that he stood there not only for amusement and beauty but also because he was useful. Such a combination is superior and can make one forget the twenty years one has spent in the attic—and that sort of thing it is best to forget.
A young couple came walking by, arm in arm, just as the other young couple, on the day of the picnic, had: the tanner’s daughter and the mate from the ship. The bottle felt that he was reliving something that had happened once before. Among the guests were some who had not been really invited but were allowed to come and look at the festivities. One of these was an old maid; she had no kin but she had friends. She was having exactly the same thoughts as the bottle; she was also recalling an afternoon spent in the woods, and a young couple walking arm in arm. She had been half of that sight and those had been the happiest moments of her life, and they are not forgotten, regardless of how old one becomes. She did not recognize the bottle nor he her.
That is the way of the world, we can pass each other unnoticed until we are introduced to each other again. And those two were to meet once more, now that they lived in the same town.
From the garden, the bottle was taken to the wine merchant, rinsed, and then once more filled with wine. It was sold to a balloonist, who, on the following Sunday, was to ascend into the sky in a balloon. A great crowd of people gathered to see the event and the regimental band played. The bottle saw all the preparations for the air voyage from a basket, where he lay together with a rabbit who was to be dropped down with a parachute on. The poor bunny, who knew its fate, looked anything but happy. The balloon grew and grew and finally rose from the ground when it couldn’t grow any fatter; then the ropes that held it down were cut and it slowly ascended into the sky, carrying the basket with the balloonist, the bottle, and the frightened rabbit up into the air. The crowd below cheered and screamed: “Hurrah!”
“It is a strange feeling,” thought the bottle. “It is another way of sailing but, at least, up here you can’t run aground.”
Many thousands of people were watching the balloon and the old maid in the garret was looking at it too. She was standing at her window, where the bird cage with the little songbird hung; at that time it did not have a glass birdbath but only a cracked cup that had lost its handle. On the window sill was a myrtle bush; the flowerpot had been moved a little out of the way so that the woman could lean out of the window and get a better view of the balloon.
She could see everything clearly: how the balloonist threw the rabbit out and its tiny parachute unfolded.
Now he was taking the bottle and uncorking it. He drank a toast to all the spectators. But he did not put the bottle back; instead he cast it high into the air. The old maid saw that too, but she did not know that this was the very bottle she had seen fly once before: in the springtime of her life, on that happy day in the green forest.
The bottle had hardly the time to think half a thought, not to talk of a whole one. The high point of his life had come and so unexpectedly! Far below him were the towers and roofs of the city; the people looked so tiny.
The bottle decended with quite a different speed than the rabbit had. The bottle performed somersaults as he fell; he had been half filled with wine, but soon that was gone. He felt so young, so joyful and gay. What a journey! The sun reflected in him and every person below was following him with their eyes.
The balloon was soon out of sight and so was the bottle; it fell on a roof and splintered. It hit with such force that all the little pieces danced and jumped, and did not rest before they had fallen all the way down into a yard. The neck of the bottle was whole; it looked as if it had been cut from the rest of the bottle with a diamond.
“It would do as a birdbath,” said the man who found it. He lived in a cellar. But since he had neither cage nor bird, he thought it a little expensive to buy them just because he had an old bottleneck that could be used as a birdbath. He remembered the old maid who lived up under the roof, she might find it useful.
A cork was put in the bottleneck, and it was hung upside down in the cage of the little bird that sang so beautifully. Now it was filled with fresh water instead of wine; and what used to be “up” was “down,” but that is the sort of change that sometimes does happen in this world.
“Yes, you can sing,” sighed the bottleneck, who had had so many adventures. The bird and the old maid knew only of the most recent one when he had been up in a balloon.
Now the bottle had become a birdbath; he could hear the rumble of the traffic down in the street and the voice of the mistress talking to an old friend. They were not talking about the bottleneck but about the myrtle bush in the window.
“There is no reason for you to spend two crowns on a bridal bouquet for your daughter,” the old maid was saying. “I will cut you a beautiful one from my bush. You remember the myrtle bush you gave me the day after I had become engaged? Well, the little bush over in the window is a cutting from that one. You hoped that I would cut my bridal bouquet from it, but that day never came. Those eyes are closed that should have shone for me and been the happiness of my life. On the bottom of the sea he sleeps now, my belove
d. The bush you gave me became old, but I became even older. When it was just about to die, I cut a branch from it and planted it. Look how it has thrived; finally, it will attend a wedding: your daughter’s.”
There were tears in the old woman’s eyes as she talked about the young man who had loved her when she was young. She recalled his toast and the first kiss he had given her; but that she did not tell about, for she was truly an old maid. No matter how much she thought about the past, it never occurred to her that just outside the window, in the bird cage, hung a witness to those times: the neck of the very bottle that had contained the wine with which her engagement had been celebrated. The bottleneck did not recognize her either, nor did he listen to what she was saying, but that was mostly because the bottleneck never thought about anyone but himself.
80
The Philosopher’s Stone
You remember the story about Holger the Dane? I don’t want to tell it to you; I am only asking to find out whether you remember how Holger won great India, which stretches east as far as the end of the world, where grows a tree called the Tree of the Sun. As Christian Pedersen says—you don’t know who Christian Pedersen is? Well, that doesn’t matter, it is of no importance whether you know him or not. Holger the Dane made the priest Jon ruler over all of Indialand. You have never heard of priest Jon? Well, never mind, he is not really important either; he is not in the story at all. What I want to tell you about is the Tree of the Sun, that stands in Indialand, which stretches east to the end of the world. Once anyone would have understood immediately what I was talking about; but that was before one was taught geography in the manner that we are now—and that, too, is of no importance.
The Tree of the Sun was magnificent; I have never seen it and neither will you. Its crown was the size of a whole forest and was miles and miles around. Its limbs were so gigantic that their crooked shapes were like dales and hills; they were covered with moss as soft as velvet, in which the most beautiful flowers grew. Every branch and twig that protruded from the main boughs was a tree, and each was different from all the others: one was a palm tree, another a beech tree, a third a plane tree; all the kinds of trees in the whole world were there. The sun was always shining on it, for truly it was the Tree of the Sun. Birds from all corners of the world visited it. They came from the forests of America, the rose gardens of Denmark, and the jungles of Africa, where elephants and lions believe that they are the rulers. Birds from both the poles came; and naturally, the swallows and the storks were there as well. Not only birds lived in the Tree of the Sun; deer, antelope, squirrels, and thousands of other animals made their home there.