Prevod

On one of the Danish islands, where ancient assembly mounds rise among the cornfields and mighty trees tower in the beechwoods, lies a little town with red roofs on its low houses. In one of these, strange things were being made over the glowing coals and embers of the hearth; liquids boiled in glass vessels, substances were mixed and distilled, herbs were pounded in mortars; an elderly man presided over it all.

"One must take care to get things right!" he said. "Yes, what is right and true—the truth in every created thing—that is what one must know and hold fast to." In the parlour with the good mother sat two of her sons, still small, but with thoughts beyond their years. Their mother, too, had always spoken to them of right and justice, of holding fast to truth, for it was the face of Our Lord in this world.

The elder boy looked mischievous and bold; his delight was to read about the forces of nature, about the sun and stars; no fairy tale was more wonderful to him. Oh, what happiness to go on voyages of discovery, or to find out how to copy a bird's wings, and then to be able to fly! Yes, that would be finding the truth! Father was right, and Mother was right. Truth held the world together.

The younger brother was quieter and lost himself entirely in his books. When he read of Jacob, who dressed himself in sheepskins to resemble Esau and so fraudulently gain the birthright, he clenched his little fist in indignation, angry with the deceiver; when he read of tyrants and all the injustice and wickedness committed in the world, tears stood in his eyes. So powerfully was he filled with the thought of right, of truth, which should and must prevail. One evening, when the little boy was already in bed, though the curtains around it were not quite drawn and the light shone in upon him, he lay with his book, determined to finish the story of Solon.

And his thoughts lifted him and bore him strangely far away; it was as though his bed had become a ship under full sail. Was he dreaming, or what was happening? He glided over rolling waters, the great seas of time; he heard the voice of Solon, and, intelligible though spoken in a foreign tongue, the Danish maxim rang out: "With law shall the land be built!"

And the guardian spirit of humankind stood in the humble room, bent over the bed, and pressed a kiss upon the boy's forehead: "Be strong in honour and strong in life's struggle! With truth in your heart, fly towards the land of truth!"

The elder brother had not yet gone to bed; he stood at the window, looking out at the mists rising from the meadow. Those were not elf-maidens dancing there, though an old servant had indeed told him so; he knew better: they were vapours, warmer than the air, and that was why they rose. A shooting star flashed, and in that same instant the boy's thoughts leapt from the earth's vapours all the way up to the shining meteor. The stars of heaven twinkled; it was as though long golden threads hung from them down to our earth.

"Fly with me!" The words sang and rang straight into the boy's heart; and the mighty guardian spirit of the generations, swifter than the bird, than the arrow, than anything earthly that can fly, bore him out into space, where beams from star to star bound the heavenly bodies to one another. Our earth turned in the thin air; town seemed close beside town. Through the spheres rang the words:

"What is near, what is far, when the mighty spirit of the mind lifts you!" And once more the little boy stood at the window, looking out; the younger brother lay in his bed, and their mother called them by name: "Anders and Hans Christian!"

Denmark knows them; the world knows the two brothers—Ørsted.