"How beautiful that is!" he said; but he was obliged to attend to his property, and thus forgot the bird. But when the next night the bird sang again, and the fisherman heard it, he exclaimed again, "How beautiful that is!"
From all the countries of the world travelers came to the city of the Emperor, and admired it, and the palace and the garden, but when they heard the Nightingale, they said, "That is the best of all!"
And the travelers told of it when they came home; and the learnèd men wrote many books about the town, the palace, and the garden. But they did not forget the Nightingale; that was placed highest of all; and those who were poets wrote most magnificent poems about the Nightingale in the wood by the deep lake.
The books went through all the world, and a few of them once came to the Emperor. He sat in his golden chair, and read, and read: every moment he nodded his head, for it pleased him to peruse the masterly descriptions of the city, the palace, and the garden. "But the Nightingale is the best of all," it stood written there.
"What's that?" exclaimed the Emperor. "I don't know the Nightingale at all! Is there such a bird in my empire, and even in my garden? I've never heard of that. To think that I should have to learn such a thing for the first time from books!"
And hereupon he called his cavalier. This cavalier was so grand that if anyone lower in rank than himself dared to speak to him, or to ask him any question, he answered nothing but "P!"--and that meant nothing.
"There is said to be a wonderful bird here called a Nightingale," said the Emperor. "They say it is the best thing in all my great empire. Why have I never heard anything about it?"
"I have never heard him named," replied the cavalier. "He has never been introduced at Court."
"I command that he shall appear this evening, and sing before me," said the Emperor. "All the world knows what I possess, and I do not know it myself!"
"I have never heard him mentioned," said the cavalier. "I will seek for him. I will find him."
But where was he to be found? The cavalier ran up and down all the staircases, through halls and passages, but no one among all those whom he met had heard talk of the Nightingale. And the cavalier ran back to the Emperor, and said that it must be a fable invented by the writers of books.