braided wreaths, so they didn’t go along either, and when the others got to the willow trees where the baker’s tent was, they said, “Well, now we’re out here, but the bell really doesn’t exist. It’s just something you imagine.”
Just then the bell rang out sweetly and solemnly deep in the forest, so four or five of the young people decided to go further into the woods. It was so dense and full of leafy growth that it was really hard to move forward. Woodruff and anemones grew almost too high. Flowering bindweed and blackberry vines hung in long festoons from tree to tree where the nightingale sang, and the sunbeams played. Oh, it was so beautiful, but it was no place for the girls—their clothes would be torn. There were big boulders covered with moss of all colors, and the fresh spring water trickled up, making an odd “gluck gluck” sound.
“Could that be the bell?” one of the young people asked, and lay down on the ground to listen. “This really needs to be looked into!” so he stayed there and the others went on.
They came to a house of bark and branches. A big tree full of wild apples hung down over it, as if it wanted to shake its blessings over the roof, which was flowering with roses. The long branches were spread over the gable, and a small bell was hanging from it. Could that be the one they had heard? They all agreed that it was, except one boy who said that the bell was too little and fine to be heard so far away as it had been, and that the tones it would produce wouldn’t stir the heart as the bell had. The one who spoke was a prince, and so the others said, “Someone like him is always such a know-it-all.”
So they let him go on alone, and as he walked his breast became more and more filled with the loneliness of the woods, but still he heard the little bell that had satisfied the others, and sometimes when the wind was in the right direction, he heard them singing over tea at the baker’s. But the deep pealing was stronger, and it was as if an organ were playing along. The sound came from the left, from the side where the heart is.
Suddenly there was a rustling in the bushes, and a little boy stood in front of the prince. He was wearing wooden shoes, and his jacket was so short that you could see what long wrists he had. They knew each other because the boy was the same one who couldn’t come along because he had to go home and deliver the suit and shoes to the landlord’s son. He had done that and now he was wearing the wooden shoes and his poor clothing. He had come into the woods alone because the bell pealed so loudly and deeply that he had to come.
“Well, then we can go together,” said the prince. But the poor boy with the wooden shoes was quite shy. He tugged on his short sleeves, and said that he was afraid that he couldn’t walk fast enough. And he also was convinced that the bell had to be sought to the right, since everything grand and magnificent lies on the right hand side.
“Well, then we won’t meet again,” said the prince and nodded to the poor boy, who went into the darkest and most dense part of the woods where the thorns ripped his worn-out clothes apart and bloodied his face, hands, and feet. The prince also got a few good scratches, but the sun shone on his path, and he’s the one we’ll follow because he was a bright lad.
“I must and will find the bell,” he said, “if I have to walk to the ends of the earth!”
The nasty monkeys sat up in the trees, grinning and showing all their teeth. “Should we pelt him? Should we pelt him? He’s a prince.”
But he went steadily deeper and deeper into the forest where the most wonderful flowers grew. There were white paradise lilies with blood-red stamens, sky-blue tulips that sparkled in the wind, and apple trees whose apples looked exactly like big shining soap bubbles. Just imagine how those trees shone in the sunlight! Around the lovely green meadows where deer played in the grass magnificent oaks and beeches were growing, and where a tree had a crack in the bark, grass and long vines were sprouting in the crack. There were also large stretches of woods with quiet lakes where white swans swam and spread their wings. The prince often stood still and listened and thought that he heard the bell pealing from one of these deep lakes, but then he noticed that it didn’t come from there, but was pealing from still deeper in the woods.
Then the sun went down, and the sky shone red like fire. It became very quiet, so quiet in the forest. And he sank to his knees, sang his evening hymn, and said, “I’ll never find what I’m seeking! Now the sun’s going down, and night is coming, the dark night. But maybe I can still see the round, red sun before it completely sinks behind the earth. I’ll climb up on those rocks over there. They’re as high as the tallest trees.”
He grabbed hold of the vines and roots and climbed up the wet rocks where the water snakes twisted around and toads seemed to bark at him. But he reached the top before the sun had set. What grandeur could be seen from that height! The sea, the great magnificent sea, with its long waves rolling towards shore, lay stretched out before him. The sun stood like a large shining altar where sea and sky met, and everything melted together in glowing colors. The forest sang, and the sea sang, and his heart sang along with them. All of nature was a great holy church where trees and floating clouds were the pillars, the flowers and grass the woven velvet cloth, and the sky itself the great dome. The red colors went out up there as the sun disappeared, but millions of stars were lit, and then millions of diamond lamps were shining. The prince stretched his arms out to the sky, the sea, and the forest and, just then, from the right side came the poor boy with the short sleeves and the wooden shoes. He had gotten there at the same time, going his own way, and they ran towards each other and held each other’s hands in Nature and Poetry’s great church. And above them pealed the invisible holy bell, and blessed spirits swayed in a dance around it in a jubilant hallelujah!
NOTE
1 Satirical reference to the literary tea parties of the time, where literature that was new or as yet unpublished was read aloud.
THE THORNY PATH TO GLORY
THERE’S AN OLD FAIRY tale: “The thorny path to glory about a hunter named Bryde, who earned great honor and worth, but only after long and numerous tribulations and dangers in life.” Many a one of us have probably heard this as a child, maybe read it later as an adult and thought about his own obscure thorny path and “numerous tribulations.” The fairy tale and reality are not far apart, but the fairy tale has its harmonious conclusion here on earth, while reality often postpones it past earthly life into time and eternity.
The history of the world is a magic lantern that shows us in slides on the black background of their time how humanity’s benefactors, the martyrs of science and art, wander the thorny path to glory.
From all times and from all countries these slides appear, each only for a moment, but encompassing a whole life—a lifetime with its struggles and triumphs. Let’s look at, here and there, a few in this band of martyrs, one that won’t end until the earth fades away.
We see a crowded amphitheater. Aristophanes’
