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THE BELL-DEEP |
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there, every word and every sigh. The air knows it, the wind tells it, and the church Bell understands his tongue, and rings it out into the world, " Ding-dorTg ! ding-dong ! "
' But it was too much for me to hear and to know ; I was not able to ring it out. I became so tired, so heavy, that the beam broke, and I flew out into the shining air down where the water is deepest, and where the River-man lives, solitary and alone ; and year by year I tell him what I have heard and what I know. " Ding-dong ! ding-dong ! " '
Thus it sounds out of the bell-deep in the Odense River : that is what grandmother told us.
But our schoolmaster says that there is no bell that rings down there, for it can't do so ; and that no River-man dwells there, for there are no River-men ! And when all the other church bells are sounding sweetly, he says that it is not really the bells that are sounding, but that it is the air itself which sends forth the notes ; and grand* mother said to us that the Bell itself said it was the air who told it him, consequently they are agreed on that point, and this much is sure.
' Be cautious, cautious, and take good heed to thyself,' they both say.
The air knows everything. It is around us, it is in us, it talks of our thoughts and of our deeds, and it speaks longer of them than does the Bell down in the depths of the Odense River where the River-man dwells ; it rings it out into the vault of heaven, far, far out, for ever and ever, till the heaven bells sound ' Ding-dong ! ding-dong !' |
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THE WICKED PRINCE
There was once a wicked and arrogant Prince. His whole ambition was to conquer all the countries in the world, and to inspire all men with fear. He went about with fire and sword, and his soldiers trampled down the corn in the fields, and set fire to the peasants' houses, so that the red flames licked the leaves from the trees, and the fruit hung burned on the black charred branches. With her naked baby in her arms, many a poor mother
ANDERSEN V |
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