I

Once upon a time there was a small green parrot, with a coral-coloured head. It should have lived in Uruguay, but actually it lived in Pimlico, in a cage, a piece of apple stuck between the bars at one end of its perch, and a lump of sugar between the bars at the other. It was well-cared for; its drinking water was fresh every day, the seed in its little trough was daily renewed, and the cage stood on a table in the window to get the yellow sunlight that occasionally penetrated the muslin curtains. The room, furthermore, was well-warmed, and all cats and such dangers kept rigorously away. In spite of all this, the bird was extremely disagreeable. If anyone went to stand beside its cage, in order to admire its beautiful and brilliant colouring, it took refuge in a corner, buried its head beneath the seed-trough, and screamed on a harsh, shrill note like a pig in the shambles. Whenever it believed itself to be unobserved, it returned to the eternal and unavailing occupation of trying to get out of its cage.

In early days, it had had a cage of less substantial make: being a strong little bird it had contrived to loosen a bar and to make its escape once or twice into the room; but, consequent on this, a more adequate cage had been procured, the bars of which merely twanged like harp-strings under the assault of the beak, and yielded not at all. Nevertheless the parrot was not discouraged. It had twenty-four hours out of every day at its disposal, and three hundred and sixty-five days out of every year. It worked at the bars with its beak; it stuck its feet against the sides, and tugged at the bar. Once it discovered how to open the door, after which the door had to be secured with a piece of string. The owners of the parrot explained to it, that, should it make good its escape from the house, it would surely fall a prey to a cat, a dog, or a passing motor; and if to none of these things, then to the climate of England, which in no way resembled the climate of Uruguay. When they stood beside its cage giving those explanations, it got down into the corner, cowered, and screamed.

The parrot was looked after by the under-housemaid, a slatternly girl of eighteen, with smudges of coal on her apron, and a smear of violet eyes in a white sickly face. She used to talk to the parrot while she was cleaning out the tray at the bottom of the cage, confiding to it all her perplexities, which she could safely do without fear of being overheard, by reason of the din the parrot maintained meanwhile. In spite of its lack of response, she had for the parrot a passion which transformed it into a symbol. Its jade-green and coral seemed to give her a hint of something marvellously far removed from Pimlico. Her fifteen minutes with the parrot every morning remained the one fabulous excursion of her day; it was a journey to Bagdad, a peep into the caves of Aladdin. “Casting down their golden crowns upon a glassy sea,” she murmured, in a hotch-potch of religion and romance—for the two in her mind were plaited together into an unexplained but beautiful braid, that was a source of confusion, rapture, and a strange unhappiness.

Apart from the function of cleaning out the cage, which she performed with efficiency, she was, considered as a housemaid, a failure. Perpetually in trouble, she tried to mend her ways; would turn energetic, would scrub and polish; then, as she relapsed into day-dreams, the most important part of her work would be left forgotten. Scolding and exasperation stormed around her ears. Sometimes she appeared disheartened and indifferent; sometimes she gazed in a scared fashion at the indignant authority and set about her work with a dazed vehemence. But black-lead and Brasso remained to her, in spite of her efforts, of small significance.

Meanwhile the parrot gave up the attempt to get out of its cage, and spent its days moping upon the topmost perch.

II

Peace reigned in the house. The parrot no longer tore at its bars or screamed, and as for the under-housemaid, she was a transformed creature: punctual, orderly, competent, and unobtrusive. The cook said she didn’t know what had come over the bird and the girl. According to her ideas, the situation was now most satisfactory. The two rebels had at last fallen into line with the quiet conduct of the house, and there was no longer anything to complain of, either in the sitting-room or the basement. It would have been hypercritical to complain that the girl’s quietness was disconcerting. When her tasks were done, she retired to her bedroom, where she might be found at any moment sitting with her hands lying in her lap, the violet eyes looking out of the window. Well, if she chose so to spend her time.... The parrot sat huddled on its perch, flaunting in plumage indeed, for that was beyond its control, but irreproachable in demeanour. It appeared almost to apologize by its humility for the garishness of colour wherewith Nature had afflicted it.

One morning the cook came down as was her custom, and found the following note addressed to her, propped up on the kitchen dresser:

“Dear Mrs. White, i have gone to wear the golden crown but i have lit the stokhole and laid the brekfast.”

Very much annoyed, and wondering what tricks the girl had been up to, she climbed the stairs to the girl’s bedroom. The room had been tidied, and the slops emptied away, and the girl was lying dead upon the bed.

She flew downstairs with the news. In the sitting-room, where she collided with her mistress, she noticed the parrot on its back on the floor of the cage, its two little legs sticking stiffly up into the air.