450 THE BOTTLE-NECK.

and the paper was put back into the bottle, and the latter was
deposited in a great cupboard in a great room in a great house.

Whenever strangers came, the paper was brought out and
turned over and over, sv that the inscription, which was only
written in pencil, became more and more illegible, so that at last
no one could see that there were letters on it. And for a whole
year more the bottle remained standing in the cupboard ; and
then it was put into the loft, where it became covered with dust
and cobwebs. Ah, how often it thought of the better days, the
times when it had poured forth red wine in the green wood, when
it had been rocked on the waves of the sea, and when it had
carried a secret, a letter, a parting sigh, safely enclosed in its
bosom.

For full twenty years it stood up in the loft; and it might have
remained there longer, but that the house was to be rebuilt. The
roof was taken off, and then the bottle was noticed, and they
spoke about it, but it did not understand their language; for one
cannot learn a language by being shut up in a loft, even if one
stays there twenty years.

“If I had been down in the room,” thought the Bottle, “I
might have learned it.” .

It was now washed and rinsed, and indeed this was requisite.
It felt quite transparent and fresh, and as if its youth had been
renewed in this its old age; but the paper it had carried so faith-
fully had been destroyed in the washing.

The bottle was filled with seeds, though it scarcely knew what
they were. It was corked and well wrapped up. No light nor
lantern was it vouchsafed to behold, much less the sun or the
moon ; and yet, it thought, when one goes ona journey one ought
to see something; but though it saw nothing, it did what was
most important—it travelled to the place of its destination, and
was there unpacked.

“ What trouble they have taken over yonder with that bottle!”
it heard people say ; “ and yet it is most likely broken.” But it
was not broken.

The bottle understood every word that was now said; this was
the language it had heard at the furnace, and at the wine mer-
chant’s, and in the forest, and in the ship, the only good old lan-
guage it understood : it had come back home, and the language
was as a salutation of welcome to it. For very joy it felt ready
to jump out of people’s hands ; hardly did it notice that its cork
had been drawn, and that it had been emptied and carried into
the cellar, to be placed there and forgotten. There’s no place
like home, even if it’s inacellar! It never occurred to the
bottle to think how long it would lie there, for it felt comfortable,
and accordingly lay there for years. At last people came down
mto the cellar to carry off all the bottles, and ours among the
rest.