The Bottle Neck Page #4

"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

								

merrily than ever.

"Ah, you have good reason to sing," said the bottle neck, which
was looked upon as something very remarkable, because it had been in a
balloon; nothing further was known of its history. As it hung there in
the bird's-cage, it could hear the noise and murmur of the people in
the street below, as well as the conversation of the old maid in the
room within. An old friend had just come to visit her, and they
talked, not about the bottle neck, but of the myrtle in the window.

"No, you must not spend a dollar for your daughter's bridal
bouquet," said the old maid; "you shall have a beautiful little
bunch for a nosegay, full of blossoms. Do you see how splendidly the
tree has grown? It has been raised from only a little sprig of
myrtle that you gave me on the day after my betrothal, and from
which I was to make my own bridal bouquet when a year had passed:
but that day never came; the eyes were closed which were to have
been my light and joy through life. In the depths of the sea my
beloved sleeps sweetly; the myrtle has become an old tree, and I am
a still older woman. Before the sprig you gave me faded, I took a
spray, and planted it in the earth; and now, as you see, it has become
a large tree, and a bunch of the blossoms shall at last appear at a
wedding festival, in the bouquet of your daughter."

There were tears in the eyes of the old maid, as she spoke of
the beloved of her youth, and of their betrothal in the wood. Many
thoughts came into her mind; but the thought never came, that quite
close to her, in that very window, was a remembrance of those olden
times,--the neck of the bottle which had, as it were shouted for joy
when the cork flew out with a bang on the betrothal day. But the
bottle neck did not recognize the old maid; he had not been
listening to what she had related, perhaps because he was thinking
so much about her.
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