The Bell

People said, "The evening bell is ringing, the sun is setting." For a strange, wonderful sound was heard in the narrow streets of a big town. It was like the sound of a church bell, but it was only heard for a moment, because the noise of the carriages and the voices of the crowd were too loud.

Those who were walking outside the town, where the houses were further apart with gardens or little fields between them, could see the evening sky even better and heard the bell much more clearly. It was as if the sounds came from a church in the quiet forest. People looked that way and felt very solemn.

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 wonderfully sweet tone. Let's stroll over there and examine it more closely." So the rich drove out, and the poor walked, but the way seemed strangely long to them.

When they came to a clump of willows on the edge of the forest, they sat down and looked up at the long branches, thinking they were now in the middle of the green wood.

The town confectioner 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 covered with tar to protect it from the rain.

When all the people returned home, they said it had been very romantic, and that it was quite different from a picnic or tea party. Three persons claimed they had gone to the end of the forest and had always heard the wonderful sounds of the bell, but it seemed to them as if it came from the town.

One wrote a whole poem about it, saying the bell sounded like a mother's voice to a good, dear child, and that no melody was sweeter than the tones of the bell. The king of the country also noticed it and vowed that whoever could discover where the sounds came from would have the title of "Universal Bell-ringer," even if it wasn't really a bell.

Many people now went to the wood to get the title, but only one returned with a sort of explanation, for nobody went far enough, not even that one further than the others. However, he said the sound came from a very large owl in a hollow tree, a kind of learned owl that kept knocking its head against the branches. But whether the sound came from its head or from the hollow tree, nobody could say for sure. So he got the position of "Universal Bell-ringer" and wrote a yearly short paper "On the Owl." But everyone was just as wise as before.

It was confirmation day. The clergyman had spoken so movingly, and the children being confirmed were deeply touched. It was an important day for them. From children they suddenly became grown-ups. It was as if their young souls were now to fly all at once into people with more understanding.

The sun was shining gloriously. The confirmed children went out of the town, and from the wood the sound of the unknown bell came to them with wonderful clarity. They all immediately wanted to go there, except three.

One had to go home to try on a ball dress, for it was the dress and the ball that had made her get confirmed this time, otherwise she wouldn't have come. Another was a poor boy who had borrowed his coat and boots from the innkeeper's son for the confirmation, and had to return them by a certain hour.

The third said he never went to a strange place without his parents, that he had always been a good boy until now, and would still be so now that he was confirmed, and that one shouldn't laugh at him for it. But the others did make fun of him anyway.

So three did not go; the others hurried on. The sun shone, the birds sang, and the children sang too, each holding the other's hand, for as yet none of them had any high office, and they were all equal in the eyes of God.

But two of the youngest soon got tired and returned to town. Two little girls sat down and made garlands, so they didn't go either. When the others reached the willow tree where the confectioner was, they said, "Now we are there! In reality, the bell doesn't exist. It's just something people have imagined."

At that moment, the bell sounded deep in the wood, so clear and solemn that five or six decided to go further. The undergrowth was so thick and the foliage so dense that it was very tiring to go on.

Woodruff and anemones grew almost too high; blooming bindweeds and blackberry bushes hung in long garlands from tree to tree, where the nightingale sang and the sunbeams played. It was very beautiful, but no place for girls to go; their clothes would get torn.

Large blocks of stone lay there, covered with moss of every color. A fresh spring bubbled up, making a strange gurgling sound.

"That surely can't be the bell," said one of the children, lying down and listening. "This must be checked." So he stayed behind and let the others go on without him.

They came to a little house made of branches and tree bark. A large wild apple tree bent over it, as if it would shower all its blessings on the roof, where roses were blooming. Long stems twined around the gable, on which hung a small bell.

Was that what people had heard? Yes, everyone agreed, except one person who said the bell was too small and too delicate to be heard from so far away, and besides, its tones were very different from those that could move a human heart in such a way. It was the king's son who spoke, and the others said, "Such people always want to be wiser than everyone else."

They let him go on alone. As he went, his heart filled more and more with the forest solitude. He still heard the little bell that satisfied the others, and now and then, when the wind blew, he could also hear the people singing at tea near the confectioner's tent.

But the deep sound of the bell grew louder; it was almost as if an organ were accompanying it, and the tones came from the left, the side where the heart lies. A rustling was heard in the bushes, and a little boy stood before the king's son.

He wore wooden shoes and such a short jacket that you could see his long wrists. They knew each other. The boy was the one among the children who couldn't come because he had to return his jacket and boots to the innkeeper's son.

He had done that and was now going on in his wooden shoes and humble clothes, for the bell sounded with such a deep tone and strange power that he had to go on.

"Well then, we can go together," said the king's son. But the poor confirmed boy was ashamed. He looked at his wooden shoes, pulled at his short sleeves, and said he was afraid he couldn't walk so fast. Besides, he thought the bell must be sought to the right, because there were all kinds of beautiful things there.

"But then we won't meet," said the king's son, nodding to the poor boy, who went into the darkest, thickest part of the wood. There thorns tore his humble clothes and scratched his face, hands, and feet until they bled. The king's son also got some scratches, but the sun shone on his path, and it is him we will follow, for he was an excellent and determined youth.

"I must and will find the bell," he said, "even if I have to go to the end of the world."

Ugly apes sat on the trees and grinned. "Shall we thrash him?" they said. "Shall we thrash him? He is the son of a king!"

But he went on, undiscouraged, deeper into the wood, where the most wonderful flowers grew. White lilies with blood-red stamens, sky-blue tulips that shone as they waved in the wind, and apple trees whose apples looked exactly like large soap bubbles. Just think how the trees must have sparkled in the sunshine!

Around the finest green meadows, where deer played in the grass, grew magnificent oaks and beeches. If the bark of a tree was cracked, grass and long creeping plants grew in the cracks. There were large, calm lakes, too, where white swans swam and beat the air with their wings.

The king's son often stopped and listened. He thought the bell sounded from the depths of those still lakes, but then he noticed that the tone came not from there, but further off, from the depths of the forest.

The sun now set. The air glowed like fire. It was very still in the woods, so very still. He fell on his knees, sang 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 to see the round red sun once more before it disappears completely. I will climb up that rock."

He seized the creeping plants and tree roots, climbed up the moist stones where water snakes writhed and toads croaked, and reached the summit just before the sun had completely gone down. How magnificent the sight from this height!

The sea, the great, glorious sea, dashing its long waves against the coast, stretched out before him. And over there, where sea and sky met, stood the sun like a large, shining altar, all melted together in the most glowing colors.

The wood and the sea sang a song of rejoicing, and his heart sang with them. All nature was a vast holy church, in which the trees and the floating clouds were the pillars, flowers and grass the velvet carpet, and heaven itself the great dome.

The red colors faded as the sun vanished, but a million stars were lit, a million lamps shone. The king's son spread out his arms toward heaven, and wood, and sea. 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 reached the spot just as soon as the king's son. They ran toward each other and stood together hand in hand in the vast church of nature and poetry, while above them sounded the invisible holy bell.

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