“If this continues much longer I won’t be able to stand it,” she said, but she had to stand it, and it did continue.
Then a burning tear fell down on her head and rolled over her face and breast right down to the bread. Another tear fell, and many more. Who was crying over little Inger? Didn’t she have a mother up on earth? Tears of sorrow that a mother cries for her child always reach the child, but they don’t set it free—they only burn and make the torment greater. And then this unbearable hunger and not being able to reach the bread she stepped on with her foot! Finally she had the sensation that everything inside of her had eaten itself up. She was like a thin, empty pipe that pulled every sound into itself. She could hear clearly everything that concerned her up on earth, and everything she heard was bad and hard. Her mother was indeed crying deeply and sadly, but she said, “Pride goes before a fall! That was your misfortune, Inger! How you grieved your mother!”
Her mother and everyone up there knew about her sin, how she had stepped on the bread and sunk in the mud and disappeared. The cow herder had told them. He had himself seen it from the slope.
“How you have grieved your mother, Inger!” said her mother, “but this is what I thought would happen.”
“I wish I’d never been born!” thought Inger at this. “It would have been much better for me. It doesn’t help that my mother is crying now.”
She heard how the master and mistress, those good-natured people who had been like parents to her, talked. “She was a sinful child,” they said. “She didn’t respect the Lord’s gifts but trod them underfoot. The doors of mercy will be hard for her to open.”
“They should have disciplined me better,” thought Inger, “and cured me of that nonsense.”
She heard that a ballad had been written about her: The arrogant girl who stepped on the bread to have Pretty shoes, and it was sung all over the country.
“That I have to keep hearing about it! And suffer so much for it!” thought Inger. “The others should also suffer for their sins. There would be a lot to punish! Oh, how I’m tormented!”
And her mind became even harder than her shell.
“You certainly can’t improve here in this company! And I don’t want to be better. Look how they glare at me!” And her mind was angry and hateful to all people.
“Now they have something to talk about up there! Oh, how I am tormented!”
And she heard them tell her story to the children, and the little ones called her the ungodly Inger. “She was so horrid!” they said. “So awful, she deserves to be tormented.”
The children spoke nothing but hard words against her.
But one day as indignation and hunger gnawed in her hollow shell, she heard her name mentioned and her story told for an innocent child, a little girl. Then she perceived that the little one burst into tears at the story of the arrogant, finery-lov ing Inger.
“But won’t she ever come back up?” asked the little girl.
And the answer came:
“She’ll never come back up.”
“But if she asked for pardon and promised never to do it again?”
“But she won’t ask for pardon,” they said.
“I really wish she would,” said the little girl. She was quite inconsolable. “I will give my dollhouse if she can come back up again. It’s so horrible for poor Inger!”
And those words reached down into Inger’s heart and seemed to do her some good. It was the first time that anyone had said “poor Inger,” and not added the slightest mention of her mistake. A little innocent child cried and begged for her. It made her feel so strange. She would have liked to cry herself, but she couldn’t cry, and that was also a torment.
As years passed up above, there was no change down there. She heard sounds from above less often. She was spoken of less and less. Then one day she perceived a sigh, “Inger, Inger how you grieved me! I thought you would.” It was her mother, who was dying.
Sometimes she heard her name mentioned by her old master and mistress, and the mistress’ words were the gentlest. “I wonder if I’ll ever see you again, Inger. You never know where you will go.”
But Inger understood that her fine old mistress would never come where she was.
More time passed, long and bitter.
Then again Inger heard her name mentioned and saw above her something like two bright stars shining. They were two gentle eyes that closed on the earth. So many years had passed from the time that the little girl had cried inconsolably over “poor Inger” that the child had become an old woman who was now being called to the Lord. And just in this moment when thoughts from her whole life raised up, did she also remember how she as a little child had cried so bitterly when she had heard the story about Inger. That time and that impression were so vivid to the old woman at her time of death that she exclaimed aloud, “Lord, my God, haven’t I, like Inger, often stepped on your blessed gifts without thinking about it? Have not I also walked with arrogance in my heart? But in your mercy you have not let me sink, you have held me up! Don’t desert me in my last hour!”
And the old woman’s eyes closed, and the eyes of the soul opened for what had been hidden, and since Inger was so vividly in her last thoughts, she saw her, saw how far she had sunk, and with that sight the good woman burst into tears. She stood in heaven and cried for Inger like a child. Those tears and prayers rang like an echo down to the hollow, empty husk that surrounded the imprisoned, tortured soul who was overwhelmed by the unimagined love from above. An angel of God was crying over her! Why was she granted that? The tortured soul remembered all the acts she had done on earth, and trembled with the tears that Inger had never been able to cry. She was filled with remorseful grief and realized that the gates of mercy could never open for her. And at the same time as she brokenheartedly admitted this, a beam shone down into the abyss. The beam shone with more power than the sunbeam that melts the snowman boys build in the yard. And then, faster than the snowflake that falls on a child’s warm mouth melts to a drop of water, Inger’s petrified figure dissolved, and a little bird flew in zigzag-like lightning up towards the human world. But it was afraid and shy of everything around it. It was ashamed of itself and all living creatures and quickly hid itself in a dark hole it found in a decayed wall. It sat there huddled over, trembling over its entire body. It couldn’t give forth a sound. It had no voice. It sat there a long time before it calmed down enough to see and perceive all the glory out there. Oh, it was magnificent! The air was so fresh and mild. The moon shone so brightly. There were fragrances from the trees and bushes, and it was so pleasant sitting there in a fine clean coat of feathers. Oh, how all creation was brought about in love and splendor! The bird wanted to sing out all the thoughts that moved in its breast, but it wasn’t able to do so. It would have liked to sing like the cuckoo and the nightingale sing in the spring. But God, who hears the worm’s soundless hymn of thanksgiving, perceived the paean that arose in the chord of thought just as the psalm sang in David’s breast before it had words or a melody.
For days and weeks these soundless songs grew and swelled. They would be expressed with the first wing beat of a good deed, and this had to be done.
Then came the holy celebration of Christmas. The farmers raised a pole close by the wall and tied a sheaf of oats to it so that the birds should also have a happy Christmas and a good meal in this season of the Savior.
The sun rose on Christmas morning and shone on the oat sheaf and all the twittering birds that flew around the pole feeder. Then from the wall also was heard “peep peep.” The swelling thought became a sound. The faint peep was an entire hymn of joy—a thought of a good deed had awakened, and the bird flew out from its hiding place. In heaven they knew who the bird was!
Then winter came with a vengeance. The lakes were deeply frozen, and the birds and animals in the forest had a hard time finding food. The little bird flew by the road and found a kernel of grain here and there in the tracks from the sleds. At the places where t
he travelers rested it found a couple of crumbs, but only ate one of them and summoned all the other starving sparrows so they could eat. It flew to the towns, scouted about, and where a friendly hand had thrown bread from the window for the birds, it ate a single crumb, and gave the rest to the others.
During the course of the winter the bird gathered and gave away so many bread crumbs that together they weighed as much as the bread that little Inger had stepped on to avoid dirtying her shoes, and when the last bread crumb was found and given away, the bird’s grey wings turned white and grew larger.
“There’s a sea swallow flying over the lake,” said the children who saw the white bird. Sometimes it dived down into the water, and sometimes flew high in the clear sunshine. It shone in the sun so it was impossible to see what became of it. They said that it flew right into the sun.
THE BELL
WHEN THE SUN WENT down in the evening in the narrow streets of the big city, and the clouds shone like gold up between the chimneys, first one person and then another often heard a strange sound, like the chiming of a church bell. But it was only heard for a moment because there was such rumbling from the carriages and such shouting, and those noises would drown it out. “Now the evening bell is ringing,” people said. “Now the sun is going down.”
Those who went outside the city where the houses were farther apart and where there were gardens and small fields, could see the evening sky even better and hear the pealing of the bell much louder than in the city. It was as if the sound came from a church deep within the quiet, fragrant forest. People looked towards the forest and became quite solemn.
As time passed, people would ask each other, “I wonder if there’s a church out there in the woods? That bell has such a lovely, strange sound. Why don’t we go out and take a closer look at it?” So the rich people drove, and the poor people walked, but the road was so oddly long for them, and when they came to a grove of willow trees that grew by the edge of the forest, they sat down and looked up into the trees and thought they were really out in the woods. A baker from town went out there and put up his tent, and then another baker came and hung a bell over his tent, and it was a bell that was weather-proofed, but the clapper was missing. When people went home again, they said that it had been so romantic—quite different from a tea party.1 Three people insisted that they had gone all the way through the forest, and they had heard the strange pealing all the time, but it seemed to them that it was coming from town. One wrote an entire poem about it and said that the bell rang like a mother’s voice to a dear, bright child. No melody was lovelier than the peal of the bell.
The emperor of the country found out about it too and promised that whoever could determine where the sound was coming from would have the title Bellringer of the World even if a bell wasn’t making the sound.
Many went to the woods for the sake of getting that appointment, but there was only one who came back with any kind of explanation. No one had gone deeply enough into the forest, and he hadn’t either, but he said that the ringing sound came from an enormous owl in a hollow tree. It was an owl of wisdom that continually hit its head against the tree, but although he couldn’t with certainty say if the sound came from the head or from the hollow trunk, he was made Bellringer of the World. Every year he wrote a little paper about the owl, but really no one was the wiser for that.
It was Confirmation day. The minister had preached so beautifully and fervently. The confirmands had been very moved by his sermon. It was an important day for them because they suddenly went from childhood to adulthood. The childish soul was now supposed to somehow pass over into a more reasonable person. The sun was shining brightly, and the young people who had been confirmed went out of the city. From the forest the big unknown bell was pealing remarkably loudly. Right away they had such a desire to find it, all except three of them. One was going home to try her dance dress because the dress and the dance were the reason she had been confirmed now; otherwise she wouldn’t have done it. The second was a poor boy who had borrowed his confirmation suit and shoes from the landlord’s son and had to bring them back at a certain time. The third said that he never went to a strange place unless his parents were along, and that he had always been a good boy and he would remain so, even if he was confirmed. And you shouldn’t make fun of that, of course—but that’s what they did!
So three of them didn’t go along. The others set out. The sun was shining and the birds were singing, and the young people sang along and held hands because they didn’t have jobs yet and were all confirmed before the Lord.
But pretty soon two of the smallest ones got tired and turned back to town. Two young girls sat down and 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 pel
t 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!
Fairy Tales Page 49
