Prevod

"Ding dong! Ding dong!" comes the sound from the Bell Deep in the River Odense. But what river is that? Every child in the town of Odense knows it: it runs along the foot of the gardens, from the sluice to the watermill, beneath the wooden bridges. Yellow water lilies grow in the river, with brown-plumed reeds and black, velvety bulrushes, so tall and so grand; old, split willows, bent and twisted, hang far out over the water on the Munkemose side and by the bleacher's meadow. But just opposite, garden follows garden, each unlike the next: here are lovely flowers and summerhouses, neat and trim as little dollhouse finery; there is nothing but cabbages, or no garden can be seen at all, for great elder bushes spread there and hang far out over the flowing water, which in places is deeper than an oar can reach. Opposite the old convent for noblewomen lies the deepest spot, called the Bell Deep, and there the river spirit lives. He sleeps by day, when the sun shines through the water, but comes out on starry nights and in the moonlight. He is very old; Grandmother says she heard about him from her grandmother. He leads a lonely life, with no one at all to talk to but the great old church bell. Once it hung in the church tower, though now not a trace remains of either the tower or the church, which was called St Alban's.

"Ding dong! Ding dong!" rang the bell when the tower still stood, and one evening, as the sun was setting and the bell was swinging its hardest, it tore loose and flew through the air; the gleaming bronze shone like fire in the red rays.

"Ding dong! Ding dong! Now I'm off to bed!" sang the bell, and flew into the River Odense at its deepest point, which is why the place is now called the Bell Deep. But it found neither sleep nor rest there! Down with the river spirit it rings and resounds, so that sometimes it can be heard up here through the water, and many people say it means that someone is about to die. But that is not why it rings; no, it rings and tells stories to the river spirit, who is no longer alone.

And what does the bell tell? It is so old, so very old, they say; it was there long before Grandmother's grandmother was born, and yet in age it is only a child beside the river spirit. He is an old, quiet, strange creature, with eelskin breeches and a shirt of fish scales decked with yellow water lilies, rushes in his hair and duckweed in his beard, and that is not exactly handsome.

It would take years and days to repeat what the bell tells; it rambles on and on, often telling the same thing over again, sometimes briefly, sometimes at length, just as it pleases. It tells of olden times, the harsh, dark times.

"Up in the tower of St Alban's Church, where the bell hung, came the monk. He was young and handsome, but more pensive than anyone; he looked out through the opening over the River Odense, when its bed was broad and the marsh was a lake. He gazed across it and the green rampart to 'Nonnebakken' over there, where the convent stood, where a light shone from the nun's cell. He had known her well—and he remembered it, and his heart beat fast at the thought—ding dong! Ding dong!"

Yes, that is how the bell tells its tales. "The bishop's foolish servant came into the tower, and as I, the bell, cast in hard, heavy bronze, swung to and fro, I might have crushed his skull. He sat down close beneath me and played with two sticks, just as though they were a stringed instrument, and sang to his playing: 'Now I dare sing aloud what otherwise I dare not whisper, sing of all that is hidden behind lock and door! It is cold and wet there! The rats are eating them alive! No one knows of it, no one hears of it! Not even now, for the bell is ringing so loudly: ding dong! Ding dong!'

"There was a king, they called him Knud; he bowed to bishop and monk alike, but when he pressed the people of Vendsyssel too hard with heavy taxes and harsh words, they took up weapons and poles and drove him before them as though he were a wild beast. He took refuge in the church and locked the gate and door; the furious crowd gathered outside. I heard about it all: magpies and crows, and jackdaws too, were frightened by the shouting and uproar; they flew into the tower and out again, they looked at the throng below, and they peered through the church windows and cried aloud what they saw. King Knud knelt before the altar in prayer; his brothers Erik and Benedikt stood guard with drawn swords, but the king's servant, the treacherous Blake, betrayed his master. Those outside knew where to strike him, and someone hurled a stone through the window, and the king lay dead! There were shrieks and cries from the savage mob and the flock of birds, and I cried out with them, I sang and I rang: ding dong! Ding dong!"

"The church bell hangs high, sees far and wide, receives visits from the birds and understands their language. The wind rushes in to it through openings and sound holes, through every crack, and the wind knows everything; it learns it from the air, which surrounds every living thing, enters human lungs, and knows all that finds a voice, every word and every sigh! The air knows it, the wind tells it, the church bell understands its speech and rings it out to the whole world: ding dong! Ding dong!"

"But it grew too much for me to hear and know; I had not the strength to ring it all out! I grew so weary, I grew so heavy, that the beam broke and I flew out into the shining air, down to where the river is deepest, where the river spirit lives, lonely and alone. And there I tell, year in and year out, what I have heard and what I know: ding dong! Ding dong!"

That is the sound that comes from the Bell Deep in the River Odense; Grandmother has told us so. But our schoolmaster says, "There is no bell that can ring down there, because it cannot! And there is no river spirit down there, because there is no such thing as a river spirit!" And when all the church bells ring so merrily, he says it is not the bells, but really the air that is ringing; it is the air that makes the sound. Grandmother, too, said that the bell had said so. On that they agree, and so it must be true! "Take care, take care, keep close watch over yourself!" they both say.

The air knows everything! It is around us, it is within us, it speaks of our thoughts and our deeds, and it carries its tale farther than the bell down in the depths of the River Odense, where the river spirit lives. It tells it out into the vast depths of heaven, so far, so far, for ever and ever, until the bells of heaven ring: "Ding dong! Ding dong!"