Chapter 44 Uranius

Uranius In a monastery lived a young monk named Ulanius.He was a very studious and devout man.He was appointed to manage the monastery's library, and he dutifully guarded these treasures with strict conscientiousness.He wrote several fine books and was a frequent reader of the Bible and other writings. One day, when he was reading the works of "Saint Paul", he found this sentence in the "Bible": "In your eyes, the past 1,000 years are like yesterday or last night. . ” The young man found this completely impossible.But he couldn't believe it. Doubt and confusion threatened him deeply.

One morning, when the young man came out of the dark library and stepped into the sunny and beautiful monastery garden, he saw a small forest bird standing on the ground, and he was trying to get some grain for it. eat.Immediately it flew to a branch.It roosted there and sang a strange and beautiful song. This little bird is not afraid.The monk approached it, but it didn't care a bit.He would have liked to catch it, but it flew away--from branch to branch.The monk followed it, and it went on singing in its crisp and lovely voice.But the young monk could not catch it, though he pursued it from the monastery garden to the woods--a long way.

In the end he gave up the attempt.Come back to the monastery.But what he saw was beyond recognition.Everything grew, widened, and looked better than ever, both house and garden; what had been a low and small prayer room was now a great cathedral--with three towers.The monk found this strange, almost unbelievable.When he entered the gate of the monastery, and was tugging doubtfully at the cord of the bell, a porter came out, a man whom he did not know at all, who, in his amazement, shunned him. Walking through the monastery's cemetery, the monk found a large mass of tombstones, which he could not remember ever seeing.When he approached some of the other monks, they were all terrified and avoided him.Only the elder - much younger than the original elder - stood still.He did not know him at all, and the elder pointed to a cross and said to him: "In the name of the cross, I ask you: who are you, dirty soul! What are you looking for among the living?" The monk broke out in a cold sweat.His eyes drooped, and he could hardly stand, like a decrepit old man.And lo, he's grown a long white beard, down to the girdle where he still has the key to the bookcase.

The other monks led the strange-looking stranger to the elder's seat with respectful faces. The elder gave the monk the key to the library.He opened the door of the library and took out a chronicle, which recorded: The monk named Ulannius had completely disappeared three hundred years ago.No one knows whether he escaped or encountered some accident. "Oh, little bird in the woods! Is that your song?!" said the stranger, with a sigh. "I followed you and heard you sing for less than three minutes, and in that moment three centuries have passed. You sang me a song about 'eternity'. But now I understand, ah , God, in the dust I understand. I myself am but a speck of dust." He bowed his head as he spoke, and his body disappeared in the dust.

* This story was written about the same time as "The Poor Woman and Her Little Canary Bird"—that is, before Andersen was 30 years old, when he was full of fantasies and fantasies.