Prevod

In the middle of a garden grew a rose tree covered with roses, and in one of them, the loveliest of all, there lived an elf. He was so very tiny that no human eye could see him; behind every petal of the rose he had a bedchamber. He was as beautifully formed and lovely as any child could be, and had wings reaching from his shoulders right down to his feet. Oh, what a fragrance filled his rooms, and how bright and beautiful the walls were! For they were the delicate, pale pink petals of the rose.

All day long he enjoyed himself in the warm sunshine, flying from flower to flower, dancing on the wings of a fluttering butterfly, and counting how many steps it took him to travel all the highways and paths on a single linden leaf. What we call the veins of the leaf he took for highways and paths; and indeed, to him they were roads without end! Before he had finished, the sun went down; but then, he had started so late.

It grew so cold, the dew fell, and the wind blew; now it was surely best to go home. He hurried as fast as he could, but the rose had closed, and he could not get in—not a single rose stood open. The poor little elf was terribly frightened; he had never been out at night before, but had always slept so sweetly behind the warm rose petals. Oh, this would surely be the death of him!

At the other end of the garden, he knew, there was an arbor covered with lovely honeysuckle, whose flowers looked like great painted horns. He would climb down into one of these and sleep until morning.

He flew over there. Hush! There were two people inside: a handsome young man and the loveliest maiden. They sat beside one another, wishing that they might never, ever be parted; they loved one another dearly, far more than even the best of children can love their mother and father.

“Yet we must part!” said the young man. “Your brother bears us no goodwill, and so he is sending me on an errand far away, across mountains and seas! Farewell, my sweet bride, for that is what you are to me!”

Then they kissed, and the young girl wept and gave him a rose. But before she handed it to him, she pressed a kiss upon it, so fervent and tender that the flower opened. The little elf flew into it and rested his head against its delicate, fragrant walls. Yet he could plainly hear them saying, “Farewell, farewell!” and he felt the rose being placed against the young man’s breast. Oh, how the heart beat within! The little elf could not fall asleep at all, it beat so hard.

The rose did not lie still against his breast for long. The young man took it out, and as he walked alone through the dark forest, he kissed the flower—oh, so often and so ardently that the little elf was almost crushed to death. Through the petal he could feel how the young man’s lips burned, and the rose itself had opened as though beneath the strongest midday sun.

Then another man appeared, dark and angry: he was the beautiful girl’s wicked brother. He drew out a great, sharp knife, and while the young man was kissing the rose, the wicked man stabbed him to death, cut off his head, and buried it with his body in the soft earth beneath the linden tree.

“Now he is gone and forgotten,” thought the wicked brother. “He will never come back again. He was to make a long journey, across mountains and seas; a man can easily lose his life on such a journey, and so he has. He will not return, and my sister will never dare ask me about him.”

Then he scraped dead leaves over the disturbed earth with his foot and went home through the dark night. But he was not alone, as he thought: the little elf went with him, sitting inside a withered, curled-up linden leaf that had fallen into the wicked man’s hair as he dug the grave. His hat was now on top of it, and it was so dark beneath it; the elf trembled with fear and anger at the dreadful deed. In the early morning the wicked man reached home. He took off his hat and went into his sister’s bedchamber. There lay the beautiful girl in the bloom of youth, dreaming of the man she loved so dearly, whom she now imagined to be crossing mountains and passing through forests. The wicked brother bent over her and laughed hideously, as only a devil can laugh. Then the withered leaf fell from his hair onto the bedspread, but he did not notice it, and went out to get a little sleep himself in the early morning. The elf slipped out of the withered leaf, crept into the sleeping girl’s ear, and told her, as though in a dream, of the terrible murder. He described the place where her brother had killed her lover and laid his body, told her of the flowering linden tree close by, and said, “So that you will not think what I have told you is only a dream, you will find a withered leaf upon your bed!” And when she woke, she found it.

Oh, how she wept her bitter tears! Yet she dared tell no one of her sorrow. The window stood open all day, and the little elf could easily have flown out into the garden to the roses and all the other flowers, but he could not bear to leave the grieving girl. In the window stood a little monthly rose tree, and he settled in one of its flowers and watched the poor girl. Her brother came into the room many times, so merry and so wicked, but she dared not say a word about the great sorrow in her heart.

As soon as night fell, she stole out of the house and went into the forest to the place where the linden tree stood. She pulled the leaves away from the ground, dug into the earth, and at once found the murdered man. Oh, how she wept, and prayed to the Lord that she too might soon die. Gladly would she have carried the body home with her, but she could not. So she took the pale head with its closed eyes, kissed the cold mouth, and shook the earth from his lovely hair. “This I will keep!” she said. And when she had covered the dead body with earth and leaves, she took the head home with her, along with a little branch from the jasmine bush flowering in the forest where he had been killed.

As soon as she was in her room, she fetched the largest flowerpot she could find. In it she laid the dead man’s head, covered it with earth, and planted the jasmine branch in the pot.

“Farewell! Farewell!” whispered the little elf. He could no longer bear to see all that sorrow, and so he flew out into the garden to his rose. But it had finished blooming; only a few pale petals clung to the green rose hip.

“Alas, how soon all that is beautiful and good comes to an end!” sighed the elf. At last he found another rose, which became his home; behind its delicate, fragrant petals he could build and dwell.

Every morning he flew to the poor girl’s window, and there she always stood beside the flowerpot, weeping. Her bitter tears fell upon the jasmine branch, and with every day that she grew paler and paler, the branch grew fresher and greener. One shoot sprang up after another, little white flower buds appeared, and she kissed them. But her wicked brother scolded her and asked whether she had lost her wits. He neither liked nor understood her constant weeping over that flowerpot. He did not know what eyes were closed there, or what red lips had turned to earth. She bent her head against the flowerpot, and the little rose elf found her slumbering there. He crept into her ear and told her of the evening in the arbor, of the fragrance of the rose, and of the elves’ love. She dreamed so sweetly, and as she dreamed, her life ebbed away. She died a quiet death; she was in Heaven with the man she loved.

And the jasmine flowers opened their great white bells, giving out a wonderfully sweet fragrance: it was the only way they could weep for the dead girl. But the wicked brother looked at the beautiful flowering bush, took it for his own as an inheritance, and placed it in his bedchamber close to his bed, for it was lovely to look at, and its fragrance was so sweet and delightful. The little rose elf went with it, flying from flower to flower. In each one lived a little spirit, and he told it of the murdered young man, whose head was now earth beneath the earth, and of the wicked brother and the poor sister.

“We know!” said each spirit in the flowers. “We know! Have we not grown from the murdered man’s eyes and lips? We know! We know!” And they nodded their heads so strangely.

The rose elf could not understand how they could remain so calm, and he flew out to the bees gathering honey and told them the story of the wicked brother. The bees told their queen, who commanded them all to kill the murderer the next morning.

But the night before, which was the first night after the sister’s death, as the brother slept in his bed beside the fragrant jasmine, every flower opened, and the flower spirits emerged, invisible but armed with poisonous spears. First they settled beside his ear and whispered evil dreams to him; then they flew across his lips and pierced his tongue with their poisonous spears. “Now we have avenged the dead!” they said, and returned to the jasmine’s white bells.

When morning came and the bedchamber window was suddenly flung open, the rose elf flew in with the queen bee and the whole swarm to kill him.

But he was already dead. People stood around the bed, saying, “The scent of the jasmine has killed him!” Then the rose elf understood the flowers’ revenge and told the queen bee, and she and her whole swarm buzzed around the flowerpot. The bees could not be driven away. Then a man picked up the flowerpot, and one of the bees stung his hand, so that he dropped the pot and it broke.

Then they saw the white skull, and knew that the dead man in the bed was a murderer. And the queen bee buzzed in the air and sang of the flowers’ revenge and of the rose elf, and of how behind the smallest leaf there lives someone who can tell of evil and avenge it!