The Bottle Neck Page #2

"The Bottle Neck" is a short story by Hans Christian Andersen that details the lifetime adventures of a bottle. Beginning its life as a container of wine, the bottle experiences many incarnations: a buoy at sea, a bird’s home, a corner decoration in a poor man's room. Its life ends trapped in a mason’s wall, only to be discovered years later with a message that carries a lot of significance for its finder. This story is a reflection on life's journey and the significance of past experiences.

• Children

								

thou shalt never be used by others!" So saying, he hurled it high in
the air.

The furrier's daughter thought she should never see it again,
but she was mistaken. It fell among the rushes on the borders of a
little woodland lake. The bottle neck remembered well how long it
lay there unseen. "I gave them wine, and they gave me muddy water," he
had said to himself, "but I suppose it was all well meant." He could
no longer see the betrothed couple, nor the cheerful old people; but
for a long time he could hear them rejoicing and singing. At length
there came by two peasant boys, who peeped in among the reeds and
spied out the bottle. Then they took it up and carried it home with
them, so that once more it was provided for. At home in their wooden
cottage these boys had an elder brother, a sailor, who was about to
start on a long voyage. He had been there the day before to say
farewell, and his mother was now very busy packing up various things
for him to take with him on his voyage. In the evening his father
was going to carry the parcel to the town to see his son once more,
and take him a farewell greeting from his mother. A small bottle had
already been filled with herb tea, mixed with brandy, and wrapped in a
parcel; but when the boys came in they brought with them a larger
and stronger bottle, which they had found. This bottle would hold so
much more than the little one, and they all said the brandy would be
so good for complaints of the stomach, especially as it was mixed with
medical herbs. The liquid which they now poured into the bottle was
not like the red wine with which it had once been filled; these were
bitter drops, but they are of great use sometimes-for the stomach. The
new large bottle was to go, not the little one: so the bottle once
more started on its travels. It was taken on board (for Peter Jensen
was one of the crew) the very same ship in which the young mate was to
sail. But the mate did not see the bottle: indeed, if he had he
would not have known it, or supposed it was the one out of which
they had drunk to the felicity of the betrothed and to the prospect of
a marriage on his own happy return. Certainly the bottle no longer
poured forth wine, but it contained something quite as good; and so it
happened that whenever Peter Jensen brought it out, his messmates gave
it the name of "the apothecary," for it contained the best medicine to
cure the stomach, and he gave it out quite willingly as long as a drop
remained. Those were happy days, and the bottle would sing when rubbed
with a cork, and it was called a great lark, "Peter Jensen's lark."

Long days and months rolled by, during which the bottle stood
empty in a corner, when a storm arose--whether on the passage out or
home it could not tell, for it had never been ashore. It was a
terrible storm, great waves arose, darkly heaving and tossing the
vessel to and fro. The main mast was split asunder, the ship sprang
a leak, and the pumps became useless, while all around was black as
night. At the last moment, when the ship was sinking, the young mate
wrote on a piece of paper, "We are going down: God's will be done."
Then he wrote the name of his betrothed, his own name, and that of the
ship. Then he put the leaf in an empty bottle that happened to be at
hand, corked it down tightly, and threw it into the foaming sea. He
knew not that it was the very same bottle from which the goblet of joy
and hope had once been filled for him, and now it was tossing on the
waves with his last greeting, and a message from the dead. The ship
sank, and the crew sank with her; but the bottle flew on like a
bird, for it bore within it a loving letter from a loving heart. And
as the sun rose and set, the bottle felt as at the time of its first
existence, when in the heated glowing stove it had a longing to fly
away. It outlived the storms and the calm, it struck against no rocks,
was not devoured by sharks, but drifted on for more than a year,
sometimes towards the north, sometimes towards the south, just as
the current carried it. It was in all other ways its own master, but
even of that one may get tired. The written leaf, the last farewell of
the bridegroom to his bride, would only bring sorrow when once it
reached her hands; but where were those hands, so soft and delicate,
which had once spread the table-cloth on the fresh grass in the
green wood, on the day of her betrothal? Ah, yes! where was the
furrier's daughter? and where was the land which might lie nearest
to her home?

The bottle knew not, it travelled onward and onward, and at last
all this wandering about became wearisome; at all events it was not
its usual occupation. But it had to travel, till at length it
reached land--a foreign country. Not a word spoken in this country
could the bottle understand; it was a language it had never before
heard, and it is a great loss not to be able to understand a language.
The bottle was fished out of the water, and examined on all sides. The
little letter contained within it was discovered, taken out, and
turned and twisted in every direction; but the people could not
understand what was written upon it. They could be quite sure that the
bottle had been thrown overboard from a vessel, and that something
about it was written on this paper: but what was written? that was the
question,--so the paper was put back into the bottle, and then both
were put away in a large cupboard of one of the great houses of the
town. Whenever any strangers arrived, the paper was taken out and
turned over and over, so that the address, which was only written in
pencil, became almost illegible, and at last no one could
distinguish any letters on it at all. For a whole year the bottle
remained standing in the cupboard, and then it was taken up to the
loft, where it soon became covered with dust and cobwebs. Ah! how
often then it thought of those better days--of the times when in the
fresh, green wood, it had poured forth rich wine; or, while rocked
by the swelling waves, it had carried in its bosom a secret, a letter,
a last parting sigh. For full twenty years it stood in the loft, and
it might have stayed there longer but that the house was going to be
rebuilt. The bottle was discovered when the roof was taken off; they
talked about it, but the bottle did not understand what they said--a
language is not to be learnt by living in a loft, even for twenty
years. "If I had been down stairs in the room," thought the bottle, "I
might have learnt it." It was now washed and rinsed, which process was
really quite necessary, and afterwards it looked clean and
transparent, and felt young again in its old age; but the paper
which it had carried so faithfully was destroyed in the washing.
They filled the bottle with seeds, though it scarcely knew what had
been placed in it. Then they corked it down tightly, and carefully
wrapped it up. There not even the light of a torch or lantern could
reach it, much less the brightness of the sun or moon. "And yet,"
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