THE BELL



People said "The Evening Bell is sounding, the sun is setting." For a strange

wondrous tone was heard in the narrow streets of a large town. It was like the

sound of a church-bell: but it was only heard for a moment, for the rolling of

the carriages and the voices of the multitude made too great a noise.



Those persons who were walking outside the town, where the houses were farther

apart, with gardens or little fields between them, could see the evening sky

still better, and heard the sound of the bell much more distinctly. It was as

if the tones came from a church in the still forest; people looked

thitherward, and felt their minds attuned most solemnly.



A long time passed, and people said to each other--"I wonder if there is a

church out in the wood? The bell has a tone that is wondrous sweet; let us

stroll thither, and examine the matter nearer." And the rich people drove out,

and the poor walked, but the way seemed strangely long to them; and when they

came to a clump of willows which grew on the skirts of the forest, they sat

down, and looked up at the long branches, and fancied they were now in the

depth of the green wood. The confectioner of the town came out, and set up his

booth there; and soon after came another confectioner, who hung a bell over

his stand, as a sign or ornament, but it had no clapper, and it was tarred

over to preserve it from the rain. When all the people returned home, they

said it had been very romantic, and that it was quite a different sort of

thing to a pic-nic or tea-party. There were three persons who asserted they

had penetrated to the end of the forest, and that they had always heard the

wonderful sounds of the bell, but it had seemed to them as if it had come from

the town. One wrote a whole poem about it, and said the bell sounded like the

voice of a mother to a good dear child, and that no melody was sweeter than

the tones of the bell. The king of the country was also observant of it, and

vowed that he who could discover whence the sounds proceeded, should have the

title of "Universal Bell-ringer," even if it were not really a bell.



Many persons now went to the wood, for the sake of getting the place, but one

only returned with a sort of explanation; for nobody went far enough, that one

not further than the others. However, he said that the sound proceeded from a

very large owl, in a hollow tree; a sort of learned owl, that continually

knocked its head against the branches. But whether the sound came from

his head or from the hollow tree, that no one could say with certainty. So now

he got the place of "Universal Bellringer," and wrote yearly a short treatise

"On the Owl"; but everybody was just as wise as before.



It was the day of confirmation. The clergyman had spoken so touchingly, the

children who were confirmed had been greatly moved; it was an eventful day for

them; from children they become all at once grown-up-persons; it was as if

their infant souls were now to fly all at once into persons with more

understanding. The sun was shining gloriously; the children that had been

confirmed went out of the town; and from the wood was borne towards them the

sounds of the unknown bell with wonderful distinctness. They all immediately

felt a wish to go thither; all except three. One of them had to go home to try

on a ball-dress; for it was just the dress and the ball which had caused her

to be confirmed this time, for otherwise she would not have come; the other

was a poor boy, who had borrowed his coat and boots to be confirmed in from

the innkeeper's son, and he was to give them back by a certain hour; the third

said that he never went to a strange place if his parents were not with

him--that he had always been a good boy hitherto, and would still be so now

that he was confirmed, and that one ought not to laugh at him for it: the

others, however, did make fun of him, after all.



There were three, therefore, that did not go; the others hastened on. The sun

shone, the birds sang, and the children sang too, and each held the other by

the hand; for as yet they had none of them any high office, and were all of

equal rank in the eye of God.



But two of the youngest soon grew tired, and both returned to town; two little

girls sat down, and twined garlands, so they did not go either; and when the

others reached the willow-tree, where the confectioner was, they said, "Now we

are there! In reality the bell does not exist; it is only a fancy that people

have taken into their heads!"



At the same moment the bell sounded deep in the wood, so clear and solemnly

that five or six determined to penetrate somewhat further. It was so thick,

and the foliage so dense, that it was quite fatiguing to proceed. Woodroof and

anemonies grew almost too high; blooming convolvuluses and blackberry-bushes

hung in long garlands from tree to tree, where the nightingale sang and the

sunbeams were playing: it was very beautiful, but it was no place for girls to

go; their clothes would get so torn. Large blocks of stone lay there,

overgrown with moss of every color; the fresh spring bubbled forth, and made a

strange gurgling sound.



"That surely cannot be the bell," said one of the children, lying down and

listening. "This must be looked to." So he remained, and let the others go on

without him.



They afterwards came to a little house, made of branches and the bark of

trees; a large wild apple-tree bent over it, as if it would shower down all

its blessings on the roof, where roses were blooming. The long stems twined

round the gable, on which there hung a small bell.



Was it that which people had heard? Yes, everybody was unanimous on the

subject, except one, who said that the bell was too small and too fine to be

heard at so great a distance, and besides it was very different tones to those

that could move a human heart in such a manner. It was a king's son who spoke;

whereon the others said, "Such people always want to be wiser than everybody

else."



They now let him go on alone; and as he went, his breast was filled more and

more with the forest solitude; but he still heard the little bell with which

the others were so satisfied, and now and then, when the wind blew, he could

also hear the people singing who were sitting at tea where the confectioner

had his tent; but the deep sound of the bell rose louder; it was almost as if

an organ were accompanying it, and the tones came from the left hand, the side

where the heart is placed. A rustling was heard in the bushes, and a little

boy stood before the King's Son, a boy in wooden shoes, and with so short a

jacket that one could see what long wrists he had. Both knew each other: the

boy was that one among the children who could not come because he had to go

home and return his jacket and boots to the innkeeper's son. This he had done,

and was now going on in wooden shoes and in his humble dress, for the bell

sounded with so deep a tone, and with such strange power, that proceed he

must.



"Why, then, we can go together," said the King's Son. But the poor child that

had been confirmed was quite ashamed; he looked at his wooden shoes, pulled at

the short sleeves of his jacket, and said that he was afraid he could not walk

so fast; besides, he thought that the bell must be looked for to the right;

for that was the place where all sorts of beautiful things were to be found.



"But there we shall not meet," said the King's Son, nodding at the same time

to the poor boy, who went into the darkest, thickest part of the wood, where

thorns tore his humble dress, and scratched his face and hands and feet till

they bled. The King's Son got some scratches too; but the sun shone on his

path, and it is him that we will follow, for he was an excellent and resolute

youth.



"I must and will find the bell," said he, "even if I am obliged to go to the

end of the world."



The ugly apes sat upon the trees, and grinned. "Shall we thrash him?" said

they. "Shall we thrash him? He is the son of a king!"



But on he went, without being disheartened, deeper and deeper into the wood,

where the most wonderful flowers were growing. There stood white lilies with

blood-red stamina, skyblue tulips, which shone as they waved in the winds, and

apple-trees, the apples of which looked exactly like large soapbubbles: so

only think how the trees must have sparkled in the sunshine! Around the nicest

green meads, where the deer were playing in the grass, grew magnificent oaks

and beeches; and if the bark of one of the trees was cracked, there grass and

long creeping plants grew in the crevices. And there were large calm lakes

there too, in which white swans were swimming, and beat the air with their

wings. The King's Son often stood still and listened. He thought the bell

sounded from the depths of these still lakes; but then he remarked again that

the tone proceeded not from there, but farther off, from out the depths of the

forest.



The sun now set: the atmosphere glowed like fire. It was still in the woods,

so very still; and he fell on his knees, sung his evening hymn, and said: "I

cannot find what I seek; the sun is going down, and night is coming--the dark,

dark night. Yet perhaps I may be able once more to see the round red sun

before he entirely disappears. I will climb up yonder rock."



And he seized hold of the creeping-plants, and the roots of trees--climbed up

the moist stones where the water-snakes were writhing and the toads were

croaking--and he gained the summit before the sun had quite gone down. How

magnificent was the sight from this height! The sea--the great, the glorious

sea, that dashed its long waves against the coast--was stretched out before

him. And yonder, where sea and sky meet, stood the sun, like a large shining

altar, all melted together in the most glowing colors. And the wood and the

sea sang a song of rejoicing, and his heart sang with the rest: all nature was

a vast holy church, in which the trees and the buoyant clouds were the

pillars, flowers and grass the velvet carpeting, and heaven itself the large

cupola. The red colors above faded away as the sun vanished, but a million

stars were lighted, a million lamps shone; and the King's Son spread out his

arms towards heaven, and wood, and sea; when at the same moment, coming by a

path to the right, appeared, in his wooden shoes and jacket, the poor boy who

had been confirmed with him. He had followed his own path, and had reached the

spot just as soon as the son of the king had done. They ran towards each

other, and stood together hand in hand in the vast church of nature and of

poetry, while over them sounded the invisible holy bell: blessed spirits

floated around them, and lifted up their voices in a rejoicing hallelujah!

****

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