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<h2> THE BELL </h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 Bell-ringer," and
wrote yearly a short treatise "On the Owl"; but everybody was just as wise
as before.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>"I must and will find the bell," said he, "even if I am obliged to go to
the end of the world."</p>
<p>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!"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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!</p>
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