that is, he did not really speak the words as we do, for the neck of a
bottle cannot speak; but he thought them to himself in his own mind,
just as people sometimes talk quietly to themselves.

"Yes, you may sing very well, you have all your limbs uninjured;
you should feel what it is like to lose your body, and only have a
neck and a mouth left, with a cork stuck in it, as I have: you
wouldn't sing then, I know. After all, it is just as well that there
are some who can be happy. I have no reason to sing, nor could I
sing now if I were ever so happy; but when I was a whole bottle, and
they rubbed me with a cork, didn't I sing then? I used to be called
a complete lark. I remember when I went out to a picnic with the
furrier's family, on the day his daughter was betrothed,--it seems
as if it only happened yesterday. I have gone through a great deal
in my time, when I come to recollect: I have been in the fire and in
the water, I have been deep in the earth, and have mounted higher in
the air than most other people, and now I am swinging here, outside
a bird-cage, in the air and the sunshine. Oh, indeed, it would be
worth while to hear my history; but I do not speak it aloud, for a
good reason--because I cannot."

Then the bottle neck related his history, which was really
rather remarkable; he, in fact, related it to himself, or, at least,
thought it in his own mind. The little bird sang his own song merrily;
in the street below there was driving and running to and fro, every
one thought of his own affairs, or perhaps of nothing at all; but
the bottle neck thought deeply. He thought of the blazing furnace in
the factory, where he had been blown into life; he remembered how
hot it felt when he was placed in the heated oven, the home from which
he sprang, and that he had a strong inclination to leap out again
directly; but after a while it became cooler, and he found himself
very comfortable. He had been placed in a row, with a whole regiment
of his brothers and sisters all brought out of the same furnace;
some of them had certainly been blown into champagne bottles, and
others into beer bottles, which made a little difference between them.
In the world it often happens that a beer bottle may contain the
most precious wine, and a champagne bottle be filled with blacking,
but even in decay it may always be seen whether a man has been well
born. Nobility remains noble, as a champagne bottle remains the
same, even with black