Explore "The Language of the Birds" by Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In a certain city there was a merchant and his wife and their son, who was wise beyond his years; he was called Vasíli. Once all three were lunching together, and in a cage there was a Nightingale singing over the table, singing so woefully that the merchant could not bear it, and he said, "If there ever were a man who could really tell me what that Nightingale is saying and the doom he is foreboding, I should like to meet him: I would give him in my life half of my possessions, and after my death I would bequeath him many goods."
Then the little boy, who was only six years old, looked his father and mother fixedly in the eyes and said, "I know what the Nightingale is singing, only I am frightened of saying it."