A long line of ancient secrets and inexplicable myths roams through the narrow, winding streets and paved stairs of the old Lesser Town. One of them is firmly and ringingly tied to a beautiful and nowadays magnificent historic corner house, which for years bore a famous ancient sign above its main wooden entrance door in the peeling plaster—three brass bells. Originally, an ordinary and poorly maintained property of a widow stood in this Lesser Town dwelling, who experienced great decline and hardship with her mischievous children. Even though they had to eat hard bread and soups by the spoonfuls almost without a drop of grease and unnecessary meat just to survive, they had one wonderful family joy and hobby—in the evenings, they would beautifully, loudly, and melodiously sing various village tunes from memory together over the table.

One day, passing musicians secretly listened intently to their enchanting polyphonic singing through the fence and from the road. They marveled immediately at the natural rare beauty and harmony of the small human throats and begged the kind widow not to let their talent go to waste in vain. They proposed sending the youngest children to a distant choir far away in Venice, and the trembling mother, after long consideration, mainly out of a desire for a better future, finally let them leave home. Long years passed, the boys grew in the world from children into adult artists, and the elderly woman was left with nothing of the home property except relentless longing and sad hope. One winter solstice, right before the generous Prague day, someone secretly and without a trace hung and firmly attached exactly three perfect doorbells just above the very frame of the heavy wooden arched door for the abandoned mother.

They were forged from polished metal, and although no one could ever reach them from the ground and the hand of doubt did not pull across any string, in indistinct moments they sounded with a ringing clear quiver completely by themselves. Initially, and to the great horror of the passing artisans from the empty road, this strange demonstrable tinkling could not be explained by any reasonable natural logic or the blowing of the thickest western drafts. It was only the abandoned settling mother who soon discovered a very strong emotional detailed consequence for herself and a deep invisible connectedness of these brass whistling charms with the events of her distant sons in that wide Italian sea of the world. Indeed, it never missed; the alien warning was more than telling, and the truth lay elsewhere.

Whenever the first anchored and high bell began to ring in the mysterious chorus, the eldest choir son was successfully performing in the world and enjoying the celebratory praise of spectators in arenas. But when the rattling frosty middle larger bell rang, the second son was apparently crying loudly and lay down with exhausted and painful fevers; fortunately, he always healed quickly after the shaking faded. The third unnamed bell obediently announced the singing, harmless mood of the youngest offspring, who loved fooling around with girls in the streets beyond the sea. Thus the three bells sounded and played, comforting the soul from afar with their messenger reports to the widow until the end of her life reliably from the fates as clearly and comprehensibly as with paper written by goose quill. After the passing of all the people, the house did indeed get the name “At the Three Bells,” but since the moment the mother breathed her last to God, the magic on the wall abruptly fell through, and the faded golden brass bells on the breathless door never let out even a peep again.