THE PATH OF LIFE

by

STIJN STREUVELS

Translated From The West-Flemish By

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS

 * * * * *

TRANSLATOR's NOTE

In introducing this new writer to the English-speaking public, I may bepermitted to give a few particulars of himself and his life. StijnStreuvels is accepted not only in Belgium, but also in Holland as themost distinguished Low-Dutch author of our time: his vogue, in fact, iseven greater in the North Netherlands than in the southern kingdom. And Iwill go further and say that I know no greater living writer ofimaginative prose in any land or any language. His medium is theWest-Flemish dialect, which is spoken by perhaps a million peopleinhabiting the stretch of country that forms the province of WestFlanders and is comprised within the irregular triangle outlined by theNorth Sea on the west, the French frontier of Flanders on the south and aline drawn at one-third of the distance between Bruges and Ghent on theeast. In addition to Bruges and Ostend, this province of West Flandersincludes such towns as Poperinghe, Ypres and Courtrai; and so subtlysubdivided is the West-Flemish dialect that there are words which a manof Bruges will use to a man of Poperinghe and not be understood. 

It is one of the most interesting dialects known to me, containingnumbers of mighty mediaeval words which survive in daily use; and it isone of the richest: rich especially--and this is not usual indialects--in words expressive of human characteristics and of physicalsensations. 

Thus there is a word to describe a man who is not so much a poor wretch, _un misérable_, as what Tom Hood loved to call "a hapless wight:" one whois poor and wretched and outcast and out of work, not through any faultof his own, through idleness or fecklessness, but through sheer ill-luck. There is a word to describe what we feel when we hear the tearing of silkor the ripping of calico, a word expressing that sense of angryirritation which gives a man a gnawing in the muscles of the arms, a wordthat tells what we really feel in our hair when we pretend that it"stands on end. " It is a sturdy, manly dialect, moreover, spoken by afine, upstanding race of "chaps, " "fellows, " "mates, " "wives, " and"women-persons, " for your Fleming rarely talks of "men" or "women. " It isalso a very beautiful dialect, having many words that possess a charm alltheir own. Thus _monkelen_, the West-Flemish for the verb "to smile, " isprettier and has an archer sound than its Dutch equivalent, _glimlachen_. And it is a dialect of sufficient importance to boast a specialdictionary (_Westvlaamsch Idiotikon_, by the Rev. L. L. De Bo: Bruges, 1873) of 1, 488 small-quarto pages, set in double column. 

In translating Streuvels' sketches, I have given a close rendering: touse a homely phrase, their flavour is very near the knuckle; and I havebeen anxious to lose no more of it than must inevitably be lost throughthe mere act of translation. I hope that I may be forgiven for one or twophrases, which, though not existing, so far as I am aware, in any countryor district where the English tongue is spoken, are not entirely foreignto the genius of that tongue. Here and there, but only where necessary, Ihave added an explanatory foot-note. 

For those interested in such matters, I may say that Stijn Streuvels'real name is Frank Lateur. He is a nephew of Guido Gezelle, thepoet-priest, whose statue graces the public square at Courtrai, unlessindeed by this time those shining apostles of civilization, the Germans, have destroyed it. Until ten years ago, when he began to come into hisown, he lived at Avelghem, in the south-east corner of West Flanders, hard by Courtrai and the River Lys, and there baked bread for thepeasant-fellows and peasant-wives. For you must know that this foremostwriter of the Netherlands was once a baker and stood daily at sunrise, bare-chested, before his glowing oven, drawing bread for the folk of hisvillage. The stories and sketches in the present volume all belong tothat period. 

Of their number, _Christmas Night_, _A Pipe or no Pipe_, _On Sundays_ and_The End_ have appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_, which was the firstto give Stijn Streuvels the hospitality of its pages; _In Early Winter_and _White Life_ in the _English Review_; _The White Sand-path_ in the_Illustrated London News_; _An Accident in Everyman_; and _Loafing_ inthe _Lady's Realm_. The remainder are now printed in English for thefirst time. 

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS. 

Chelsea, _April_, 1915. 

 * * * * *

CONTENTS

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

 I. THE WHITE SAND-PATH

 II. IN EARLY WINTER. 

 III. CHRISTMAS NIGHT. 

 IV. LOAFING

 V. SPRING

 VI. IN THE SQUALL

 VII. A PIPE OR NO PIPE

VIII. ON SUNDAYS

 IX. AN ACCIDENT

 X. WHITE LIFE

 XI. THE END. 

 * * * * *

THE WHITE SAND-PATH

 * * * * *

I

THE WHITE SAND-PATH

I was a devil of a scapegrace in my time. No tree was too high for me, nowater too deep; and, when there was mischief going, I was the ring-leaderof the band. Father racked his head for days together to find apunishment that I should remember; but it was all no good: he wore outthree or four birch-rods on my back; his hands pained him merely fromhitting my hard head; and bread and water was a welcome change to me fromthe everyday monotony of potatoes and bread-and-butter. After a sounddrubbing followed by half a day's fasting, I felt more like laughing thanlike crying; and, in half a while, all was forgotten and my wickednessbegan afresh and worse than ever. 

One summer's evening, I came home in fine fettle. I and ten of myschool-fellows had played truant: we had gone to pick apples in thepriest's orchard; and we had pulled the burgomaster's calf into the brookto teach it to swim, but the banks were too high and the beast wasdrowned. Father, who had heard of these happenings, laid hold of me in arage and gave me a furious trouncing with a poker, after which, insteadof turning me into the road, as his custom was, he caught me up fair andsquare, carried me to the loft, flung me down on the floor and bolted thetrap-door behind him. 

In the loft! Heavenly goodness, in the loft!

Of an evening I never dared think of the place; and in bright sunshine Iwent there but seldom and then always in fear. 

I lay as dead, pinched my eyes to and pondered on my wretched plight. 'Twas silent all around; I heard nothing, nothing. That lasted prettylong, till I began to feel that the boards were so hard and that my body, which had been thrashed black and blue, was hurting me. My back was stiffand my arms and legs grew cold. And yet I nor wished nor meant to stir:that was settled in my head. In the end, it became unbearable: I drew inmy right leg, shifted my arm and carefully opened my eyes. 'Twas soghastly, oh, so frightfully dark and warm: I could see the warm darkness;so funny, that steep, slanting tiled roof, crossed by black rafters, beams and laths, and all that space beyond, which disappeared in the darkridgework: 'twas like a deserted, haunted booth at a fair, during thenight. Over my head, like threatening blunderbusses, old trousers andjackets hung swinging, with empty arms and legs: they looked just likefellows that had been hanged! And it grew darker, steadily darker. 

My eyes stood fixed and I heard my breath come and go. I pondered how'twould end here. That lasting silence affrighted me; the anxious waitingfor that coming night: to have to spend a long, long night here alone! Myhair itched and pricked on my head. And the rats! I gave a great loudscream. It rang in anguish through the sloping vault of the loft. Ilistened as it died away . .. And nothing followed. I screamed again andagain and went on, till my throat was torn. 

The gruesome thought of those rats and of that long night drove me madwith fear. I rolled about on the floor, I struck out with my arms andlegs, like one possessed, in violent, childish fury. Then, worn out, Ilet my arms and legs rest; at last, tired, swallowed up in myhelplessness, left without will or feeling, I waited for what was tocome. I had terribly wicked thoughts: of escaping from the house, ofsetting fire to the house, of _murder_! I was an outcast, I was beingtortured. I should have liked to show them what I could do, who I was; tosee them hunting for me and crying; and then to run away, always fartheraway, and never come back again. 

Downstairs, the plates and forks were clattering for supper. I was nothungry; I did not wish nor mean to eat. I heard soft, quiet voicestalking: that made me desperate; they were not speaking of me! They hadno thought nor care for the miscreant; they would liefst have him dead, out of the way. And I was in the loft!

Later, very much later, I heard my little brother's voice saying eveningprayers--I would not pray--and then I heard nothing more, nothing; and Ilay there, upstairs, lonely and forlorn. .. . 

I walked all alone in the forest, through the brushwood. 'Twas half-darkbelow; but, above the bushes, the sun was playing as through a greencurtain. I went on and on. The bushes here grew thick now and the tinypath was lost. After long creeping and stumbling, I leapt across a ditchand entered the wide drove. It did not seem strange to me that 'twas evendarker here and that the light, instead of from above, came streaming lowdown from between the trunks of the trees. The vault was closedleaf-tight and the trunks hung down from out of it like pillars. 'Twassilent all around. I went, as I thought that I must see the sun, roundbehind the trunks, half anxious at last to get out of that magic forest;but new trees kept coming up, as though out of the ground, and hid thesun. I would have liked to run, but felt I know not what in my legs thatmade me drag myself on. 

Far beyond, on the road-side grass, sat two boys. It was . .. But no, theywere sitting there too glumly! I went up to them and, after all, knewthem for Sarelke and Lowietje, the village-constable's children. They satwith their legs in the ditch, their elbows on their knees, earnestlychatting. I sat down beside them, but they did not even look up, did notnotice me. Those two boys, my schoolmates, the worst two scamps in thevillage, sat there like two worn-out old fogies: they did not know me. This ought to have surprised me, and yet I thought that it must be rightand that it had always been so. They chatted most calmly of the price ofmarbles, of the way to tell the best hoops, of buying a new box of tinsoldiers; and they mumbled their words as slowly as the priest in hispulpit. I became uncomfortable, felt ill at ease in that stifling air, under that half-dusk of the twilight, where everything was happening soearnestly, so very slowly and so heavily. I, who was all for sport andchild's-play, now found my own chums so altered; and they no longer knewme. I would have liked to shout, to grip them hard by the shoulder andcall out that it was I: I, I, I! But I durst not, or could not. 

"There--comes--the--keeper, " droned Sarelke. 

Lowietje looked down the drove with his great glassy eyes. The two boysstood up and, without speaking, shuffled away. I saw them get smaller andsmaller, till they became two black, hovering little specks that vanishedround the bend. 

I was alone again! Alone, with all those trees, in that frightful silenceall around me. And the keeper, where was he? He would come, I knew it;and I felt afraid of the awful fellow. I must get away from this, I musthide myself. I lay down, very slowly, deep in the ditch. I now felt thatI had been long, long dead and that I was lying here alone, waiting for Iforget what. That keeper: was there such a person? He now seemed to me anawesome clod of earth, which came rolling down, slowly but steadily, andwhich would fall heavily upon me. Then he turned into a lovely whiteashplant, which stood there waving its boughs in a stately manner. Iwould let him go past and then would go away. People were waiting for me, I had to be somewhere: I tried mightily to remember where, but could not. 

The keeper did not come. 

The ditch was cold, the bottom was of smooth, worn stone and very hard. Ilay there with gleaming eyes: above my head stood the giant oaks, silently, and their knotted branches ran up and were lost in the darksky. 

The keeper came, I heard his coming; and the wind blew fearfully throughthe trees. I shivered. .. . 

I woke with fright and I was still lying in my loft. The hard bottom ofthe ditch was the boarded floor and the tree-trunks were the legs offather's trousers and the branches ran up and were lost in the darksomeroofwork. Two sharp rays of light beamed through the shut dormer-window. It must be day then! And this awful night was past! All my dismay wasgone and a bold feeling came over me, something like the feeling ofgladness that follows on a solved problem. I would make Lowietje andSarelke and all the boys at school hark to my tale, that I would! I hadslept a whole night alone in the loft! And the rats! And the ghosts! Ooh!And not a whit afraid!

I got up, but that was such a slow business. I still felt that dream andthat slackness in my limbs. I was so stiff; that heavy gloom, that slowpassing of time still lingered--just as in my dream--in my slowbreathing. I still saw that forest and, shut up as I was, with not asingle touchstone for my thoughts, I began to doubt if my dream was doneand I had to feel the trouser-legs to make sure that they were not reallytrees. 

Time stood still and there was no getting out of my mind the strangethings seen in that dream-forest, with those earnest, sluggish, elderlychildren and that queer keeper. 'Twas as though some one were holding myarms and legs tight to make them move heavily, deadly heavily; and I feltmyself, within my head, grown quite thirty years older, become suddenlyan old man. I walked about the loft; I wanted to make myself heard, butmy footsteps gave no sound. 

I grew awfully hungry. Near the ladder-door, I found my prison fare. Inibbled greedily at my crust of bread and took a good drink of water. 

I now felt better, but this doing nothing wearied me; I became sad andfelt sorry to be sitting alone. If things had gone their usual gait, Ishould now be with my mates at school or playing somewhere under the opensky; and that open sky now first revealed all its delightfulness. Theusual gait, when all was said, was by far the best. .. . All alone likethis, up here. .. . Should I go down and beg father's pardon? Then 'twouldall be over and done with. .. . 

"No!" said something inside me, "I stay here!"

And I stayed. 

I shoved a box under the dormer-window, I pushed open the woodenshutter . .. And there! Before me lay the wide stretch in the blazingsunlight! My eyes were quite blind with it. 

'Twas good up here and funny to see everything from so high up, soendlessly far! And the people were no bigger than tiny tadpoles!

Just under my dormer-window came a path, a white sand-path winding frombehind the house and then running forwards to the horizon in a linestraight as an arrow. It looked like a naked strip of ground, powderedwhite and showing up sharply, like a flat snake, in the middle of thegreen fields which, broken into their many-coloured squares, lay blinkingin the sun. 

This path was deserted, lonely, as though nor man nor beast had evertrodden it. It lay very near the house and I did not know it from uphere; it looked now like a long strip of drab linen, which lay bleachingin a boundless meadow. And that again suited my loneliness so well! Atlast, I looked and saw nothing more. And that path!. .. 

Slowly, overcome by that silent, restful idleness, I fell a-dreaming; andthat path, that long, white path seemed to me to have become a part of myown being, something like a life that began over there, far away yonderin the clear blue, to end in the unknown, here, behind the gable-end, cutoff at that fatal bend. 

After long looking, I saw something, very far off; it came so slowly, sosoftly, like a thing that grows, and those two little black patches grewinto two romping schoolboys, who, rolling and leaping along, came runningdown the white sand-path and, at last, disappeared in the bend behind thegable-end. 

Then, for another long while, nothing more, nothing but sand, green andsunshine. 

Later, 'twas three labourers, who came stepping up briskly, with theirgear over their shoulders. Half-way up the path, they jumped across theditch and went to work in the field. They toiled on, without looking upor round, toiled on till I got tired of watching and tired of those threestooping men and of seeing that gleaming steel flicker in the sun and goin and out of the earth. 

When now 'twas mid-day and fiercely hot in my loft, my three labourerssat down behind a tree and ate their noonday meal. 

I went to the loft-door and devoured my second crust of bread and took afresh gulp of water. 

Very calmly, without thinking, lame with the heat and with that old-man'sfeeling still inside me, I went and sat at the window. 

The three men worked on, always, without stopping. 

And that went on, went on, until the evening! When 'twas nearly dark, they gathered up their tools, jumped over the ditch, walked down the paththe way they had come and disappeared behind the gable-end. 

Now it became deadly. 

In the distance appeared a great black patch, which came slowly nearerand nearer. The patch turned into a lazy, slow-stepping ox, with ajolting, creaking waggon, in which sat a little old man who gazedstupidly in front of him into the dark distance. The cart dragged alongwearily, creeping through the sand, and first the ox, then the littlefellow, then the waggon disappeared behind the gable-end. 

Now I felt something like fear and I shivered: the evening was coming soslowly, so sadly; and I dared not think of the night that was to follow. 'Twas the first time in my life that I fell earnestly a-thinking. So thatpath there became a life, a long-drawn-out, earnest life. .. . That wasquite plain in my head; and those boys had rolled and tumbled along thatpath; next, those big men had burdensomely, most burdensomely turned overtheir bit of earth; and the ox and the little old fellow had joggledalong it so piteously. .. . That life was so earnest and I had seen it allfrom so far, from the outside of it: I did nothing, I took no part in itand yet I lived . .. And must also one day go along that path!

And how?

Getting up in the morning, eating, playing, going to school, misbehaving, playing, eating, sleeping. .. . 

The mist rose out of the fields and I saw nothing more. 

I jumped off my box, begged father's pardon and crept into bed. 

Never again was I shut up in the loft. 

 * * * * *

IN EARLY WINTER

 * * * * *

II

IN EARLY WINTER

First the leaves had become pale, deathly pale; later they turnedyellow-brown; and then they went fluttering and flickering, so wearily, so slackly, like the wings of dying birds; and, one after the other, theybegan to fall, dancing gently downwards, in eddies. They whirled in theair, were carried on by the wind and at last fell dead and settledsomewhere in the mud. 

Not a living thing was to be seen and the cottages that sat huddled closeto the ground remained fast shut; the smoke from the chimneys alone stillgave a sign of life. 

The green drove now stood bare and bleak: two rows of straight trunkswhich grew less and faded away in the blue mist. 

Yonder comes something creeping up: a shapeless thing, like two littleblack stripes, with something else; and it approaches. .. . 

At last and at length, out of those little stripes, appear a man and awife; and, out of the other thing, a barrel-organ on a cart, with a dogbetween the wheels. 

It all looked the worse for wear. The little fellow went bent between theshafts and tugged; the little old woman's lean arms pushed against theorgan-case; and the wheeled thing jolted on like that over the cart-ruts, along the drove and through the wide gate of an honest homestead. 

A flight of black crows sailed across the sky. The wind soughed throughthe naked tree-tops; the mist rose and the world thinned away in a blueyhaze; this all vanished and slowly it became dark black night. 

Man, woman and dog, they crept, all three, high into the loft and deepinto the hay; and they dozed away, like all else outside them and around. Warm they lay there! And dream they did, of the cold, of the dark and ofthe sad moaning wind!

At early morning, before it was bright day, they were on the tramp, overthe fallow fields, and drowned in a huge sea of thick blue mist. Theypulled for all they could: the little fellow in the shafts, the littleold woman behind the cart and the dog, with his head to the ground, forthe road's sake. 

A red glow broke in the east and a new day brightened. 'Twas all white, snow-white, as if the blue mist had bleached, melted and stuck fast onthe black fields, on the half-withered autumn fruits and on the darkfretwork of the trees. Great drops dripped from the boughs. 

From under the peak of his cap, the fellow peered into the distance withhis one eye, and he saw a church and houses. They went that way. 

'Twas low-roofed cottages they saw, all covered with hoar-frost; here andthere stood one alone and then a whole little row, crowded closetogether: a street. 

They were in the village. 

It was lone and still, like a cloister, with here a little woman who, tucked into her hooded cloak, crept along the houses to the church; therea smith who hammered . .. And the little church-bell, which tinkled overthe house-tops. 

They stopped. The dog sat down to look. The little fellow threw off hisshoulder-strap, pulled his cap down lower and felt under the red-brownorgan-cloth for the handle. He gave a look at the houses that stoodbefore him, pinched his sunken mouth, wiped the seam of his sleeve overhis face and started grinding. Half-numbed sounds came trickling into thechill street from under the organ-cloth: a sad--once, perhaps, dance-provoking--tune, which now, false, dragging and twisted out ofshape, was like a muddled crawling of sounds all jumbled up together;some came too soon, the others too late, as in a weariful dream; and, inbetween, a sighing and creaking which came from very deep down, at eachthird or fourth turn, and was deadened again at once in thoseever-recurring rough organ-sounds or dragged on and deafened in a maddance. 'Twas like a poor little huddled soul uttering its plaint amid thehullabaloo of rude men shouting aloud in the street. 

The dog also had begun to howl when the tune started. 

The little wife had settled her kerchief above her sharp-featuredold-wife's face; and, with one hand in her apron-pocket and the otherholding a little tin can, she now went from door to door:

"For the poor blind man. .. . God reward you. "

And this through the whole street and farther, to the farmhouses, fromthe one to the other, all day long, till evening fell again and that samethick mist came to wrap everything in its grey, dark breath. 

And again they wandered, through a drove, to a homestead and into thehay. 

"The dog has pupped, " said the little old woman; and she shook her man. 

"Pupped?. .. "

And he turned in the nest which he had made for himself, pushed his headdeeper in the hay and drowsed on. He dreamt of dogs and of pups and oforgans and of ear-splitting yelps and howls. 

The dog lay in a fine, round little nest of his own, rolled into a balland moaning. And he[1] looked so sadly and kindly into the little oldwoman's eyes; and he licked, never stopped licking his puppies. They werelike three red-brown moles, each with a fat head; they wriggled theirthick little bodies together and sought about and squeaked. 

[1] The West-Fleming talks of dogs of either sex invariably as "he. "

When the tramps had swallowed their slice of rye-bread and their dish ofporridge, they went on, elsewhither. The little fellow tugged, the littleold woman pushed and the dogs hung swinging between the wheels, in afig-basket. So they went begging, from hamlet to hamlet, the wide worldthrough: an old man and woman, with their organ; and a dog with his threeyoung pups. 

 * * * * *

Much later. .. . 

The thick mist had changed into bright, glittering dewdrops and the sunshone high in the heaven. Now four dogs lay harnessed to the cart, fourred-brown dogs. And, when the handle turned and the organ played, allthose four dogs lifted their noses on high and howled uglily. 

Inside, deep-hidden under the organ-cloth, sat the little soul, themysterious, shabby little organ-soul, grown quite hoarse now and almostdumb. 

 * * * * *

CHRISTMAS NIGHT

 * * * * *

III

CHRISTMAS NIGHT

Over there, high up among the pines, stood the house where he lived alonewith the trees and the birds; and there, every morning, he saw the sunrise and, in the evening, sink away again. And for how many years!

In summer, the white clouds floated high over his head; the blackbirdssang in the wood around his door; and before him, in a blue vista, laythe whole world. 

When his harvest was gathered and the days drew in, when the sky closedup, when the dry pines shook and rocked in the sad wind and the crowsdropped like black flakes and came cawing over the fields, he closed hiswindows and sat down in the dark to brood. 

He must go down yonder now, to the village below. 

He fetched his Christmas star from the loft, restuck the gold flowers andpaper strips and fastened them in the cleft of the long wand. Then he puton his greatcoat, drew the hood over his head and went. 

From behind the black clouds came a light, a dull copper glow, withoutrays, high up where the stars were; it set golden edges to the hem of theclouds; the heaven remained black. There appeared a little streak ofglowing copper, which grew and grew, became a sickle, a half-disk and atlast a great, round, giant gold moon, which rose and rose. It went uplike a huge round orange behind the heaven and, more and more swiftly, shot up into the sky, growing smaller and smaller, till it became just acommon moon, the laughing moon among the stars. 

He alone had seen it. 

Now he took his star on his shoulder, pulled his hood deep over his headand wandered down the little path, all over the snow, to where the lightswere burning. It was lonely, lifeless, that white plain under thatburnished sky; and he was all alone, the black fellow on the snow. And hesaw the world so big, so monotonously bleak; a flat, white wilderness, with here and there a straight, thin poplar and a row of black, lean, knotty willows. 

He went down towards the lights. 

The village lay still. The street was black with people. Great crowds ofwomenfolk, tucked and muffled in black hooded cloaks, tramped as in adream along the houses, over the squeaking snow. They shuffled from doorto door, stuck out their bony hands and asked plaintively for theirGod's-penny. They disappeared at the end of the street and went trudginginto the endless moonlight. 

Children went with lights and stars and stood gathered in groups, theirblack faces glowing in the shine of their lanterns; they made a huge dinwith their tooting-horns[2] and rumble-pot[3] and sang of

 The Babe born in the straw

and

 The shepherds they come here. They're bringing wood and fire And this and that and t'other: Now bring us a pot of beer. 

[2] A cow's horn fitted with a mouthpiece. 

[3] An iron pot with a bladder stretched across the top, beaten with sticks, like a drum. 

Mad Wanne went alone; she kept on lurching across the street with herlong legs, which stuck out far from under her skirt, and held her armswide open under her hooded cloak, like a demon bat. She snuffledsomething about:

 'Twas hailing, 'twas snowing and 'twas bad weather And over the roofs the wind it flew. Saint Joseph said to Mary Maid: "Mary, what shall we do?"

Top[4] Dras, Wulf and Grendel, three fellows, tall as trees, were alsoloafing round. They were the three Kings: Top had turned his big jacketand blackened his face; Grendel wore a white sheet over his back and blewthe horn; and Wulf had a mitre on and carried a great star with a lanternon a stick. So they dragged along the street, singing at every door:

 Three Kings with a star Came travelling from afar, Over mountains, hills and dale, To go and look In every nook, To go and look for the Lord of All. 

[4] Beggar. 

Their rough voices droned and three great shadows walked far ahead ofthem on the white street-snow. All those people came and went and twistedand turned and came and went again. Each sang his own little song andfretted his whining prayer. Above all this rose the dull toot of thebaker's horn, as he kept on shouting:

"Hot bread! Hot bread!"

High hung the moon and blinked the stars; and fine white shafts fellthrough the air, upon everything around, like silver pollen. 

"Maarten of the mountain!" whispered the children behind the window. "Maarten the Freezyman!"[5]

[5] A legendary figure of a snow-covered bogie, who comes down to the villages at Christmas-time and runs away with the children. 

And they crept back into the kitchen, beside the fire. 

And the black man stood outside the door, tugging at the string of histwirling star, and sang through his nose:

 Come, star, come, star, you must not so still stand! You must go with me to Bethlehem Land, To Bethlehem, that comely city, Where Mary sits with her Babe on her knee. .. . 

Along the country-roads, the farmhouses stood snowed in, with blackwindow-shutters, which showed dark against the walls and shut in thelight, and stumpy chimneys, with thick smoke curling from them. Indoors, there was no seeing clearly: the lamp hung from the ceiling in a ring ofsteam and smoke and everything lay black and tumbled. In the hearth, theyule-log lay blazing. The farmer's wife baked waffles and threw them inbatches on the straw-covered floor. 

In one corner, under the light and wound from head to foot intobacco-smoke, were the farm-hands, playing cards. They sat wrapped up intheir game, bending over their little table, very quiet. Now and thencame a half-oath and the thud of a fist on the table and then againpeaceful shuffling and stacking and playing of their cards. 

The Freezyman sat in the midst of the children, who listened open-mouthedto his tale of _The Mighty Hunter_. 

His star stood in the corner. 

Later, the big table was drawn out and supper served. All gathered roundand sat down and ate. First came potatoes and pork, red kale and pigs'chaps, then stewed apples and sausages . .. And waffles, waffles, waffles. They drank beer out of little glass mugs. The table was cleared, coffeepoured out, spirits fetched from the cupboard and gin burnt with sugar. Then the chairs were pushed close, right round the hearth, and Maartenstood up, took his star, smoothed his long beard and, keeping time bytugging the string of his star, droned out:

 On Christmas night Is Jesus born To fight our fight Against the night Of Satan and his devil-spawn. And a manger is His cot And all humble is His lot; _So, mortal, make you humble, too, To serve Him Who thus served you_. 

 Three wise men and each a king Come to make Him offering; Gold, frankincense and myrrh they bring. Angels sweet Kiss His feet, As they sing: "Hail, Lord and King!" Telling all mankind the story Of His wonder and His glory; _So, mortal, make you humble, too, To serve Him Who thus served you_. 

All else was still. The men sat drinking their hot gin, the childrenlistened with their heads on one side and the farmer's wife, with herhands folded over her great lap, sat crying. 

The door opened and the Kings stood in the middle of the floor. They werewhite with snow and their faces blue with cold; the ice hung fromGrendel's moustache. They looked hard under their hats at the table, thehearth and the little glasses and at Maarten, who was still standing up. Wulf made his star turn, Top banged his rumble-pot to time and they sang:

 Three Kings came out of the East; 'Twas to comfort Mary. .. . 

When the song was ended, each got two little glasses; then they could go. 

Grendel cursed aloud. 

"That damned hill-devil swallows it all up, " muttered Wulf. 

And they went off through the snow. 

The others sang and played and played cards for ever so long and 'twaslate when Maarten took his star and, with a "Good-night till next year, "pulled the door behind him. 

It was still light outside, but the sky hung full of snow; above, a greyfleece and, lower, a swirl of great white flakes, which fell down slowlyswarming one on top of the other. 

He plunged deep into it. .. . It was still so far to go; and his house andhis pines, he had left them all so far behind. 

He was so old, so lone; it was so cold; and all the roads were white . .. All sky and snow. In the hollow lay the village: a little group ofsleeping houses round the white church-steeple; and behind it lay hismountain, but it was like a cloud, a shapeless monster, very far away. 

Above his head, stars, stars in long rows. He stood still and looked upand found one which he saw every evening, a pale, dead star, like an oldacquaintance, which would lead him--for the last time, perhaps--back tohis mountain, back home. 

And he trudged on. 

There was a light in the three narrow pointed windows of the chapel andthe bell tinkled within. He went to rest a bit against the wall. What anoise and what a bustle all the evening . .. And the gin! And those roughchaps had looked at him so brutally. In there, it was still; thosewindows gleamed so brightly; and, after the sound of the bell, there cameso softly a woman's voice:

"_Venite adoremus_. .. . "

Then all was silence, the lights went out. And he fared on. 

The village lay behind him and the road began to climb. There, on theright, stood "The Jolly Hangman. " Now he knows his way and 'tis no longerfar from home. From out of the ditch comes something creeping, a blackshape that runs across the plain, chattering like a magpie: Mad Wanne, with her thin legs and her cloak wide open. She ran as fast as she couldrun and vanished behind the inn. 

He had started; he became so frightened, so uneasy, that he hastened hissteps and longed to be at home. 

There was still a light in "The Jolly Hangman" and a noise of drunkenmen. He passed, but then turned back again . .. To sing his last song, according to old custom. They opened the door and asked him in. He sawGrendel sitting there and tried to get away. Then the three of themrushed out and called after him. When they saw that he went on, theybroke into a run:

"Stop, you brute!. .. Here, you with your star!. .. Oh, you damned singerof songs!" they howled and ran and caught him and threw him down. 

Grendel dug his knee into his chest and held his arms stretched wideagainst the ground. Wulf and Dras gripped whole handfuls of snow andcrammed it into his mouth and went on until all his face was thicklycovered and he lay powerless. Then they planted his star beside him inthe snow and began to turn and sing to the echo:

 _A, a, a_--glory be to Him on high to-day! _E, e, e_--upon earth peace there shall be! _I, i, i_--come and see with your own eye! _O, o, o_--His little bed of straw below!

Like a flash, Mad Wanne shot past, yelling and shrieking. Wulf flung hisstick against her legs. She waved her arms under her cloak and vanishedin the dark. 

The three men sat down by the ditch and laughed full-throated. Then theystarted for the village. Long it rang:

 Three Kings came out of the East; 'Twas to comfort Mary . .. 

Great white flakes fell from the starry sky, wriggled and swarmed, one ontop of the other. 

 * * * * *

LOAFING

 * * * * *

IV

LOAFING

He went, ever on the move, with the slow, shuffling step of wanderingbeggars who are nowhere at home. 

They had discharged him, some time ago, and now he was walking alone likea wild man. For whole days he had dragged himself through the moorland, from farm to farm, looking for his bread like the dogs. Now he came to awide lane of lime-trees and before him lay the town, asleep. He went intoit. The streets lay dead, the doors were shut, the windows closed: allthe people were resting; and he loafed. It was dreary, to walk alone likethat, all over the country-side, and with such a body: a giant with hugelegs and arms, which were doomed to do nothing, and that belly, thatcraving belly, which he carried about with him wherever he went. 

And nobody wanted him: 'twas as though they were afraid of his stronglimbs and his stubborn head--because his glowing eyes could not entreatmeekly enough--and his blackguardly togs. .. . 

Morning came; the working-folk were early astir. Lean men and pale women, carrying their kettles and food-satchels in their hands, beat theslippery pavements with their wooden shoes. Doors and windows flew open;life began; every one walked with a busy air, knew where he was going;and they vanished here and there, through a big gate or behind a narrowdoor that shut with a bang. Carts with green stuff, waggons with sand andcoal drove this way and that. Fellows with milk and bread went round; andit grew to a din of calls and cries, each shouting his loudest. 

And he loafed. Nobody looked at him, noticed him or wanted him. In themiddle of the forenoon, a young lady had stared at him for a long timeand said to her mother:

"What a huge fellow!"

He had heard her and it did him good. He looked round, but mother anddaughter were gone, behind a corner, and stood gazing into a shop full ofbows and ribbons. 

It began to whirl terribly in his belly; and his stomach hurt him so; andhis legs were tired. 

The streets and houses and all those strange people annoyed him. Hewanted to get away, far away, and to see men like himself: workerswithout work, who were hungry!

He looked for the narrow alleys and the poor quarter. 

Out of a side-street a draycart came jogging along. Half a score oflabourers lay tugging in the shoulder-strap or leant with all the forceof their bodies against the cart, which rolled on toilsomely. 'Twas aload of flax, packed tightly in great square bales standing one againstthe other, the whole cart full. The dray caught its right wheel in thegrating of an open gutter and remained stock-still, leaning aslant, asthough planted there. The workmen racked and wrung to get the wheel out, but it was no good. Then they stood there, staring at one another, attheir wits' end and throwing glances into the eyes of that big fellow whohad come to look on. Without saying or speaking, he caught a spoke ineither hand, pressed with his mighty shoulder against the inside of thewheel, bent and wrung and in a turn brought the cart on the level. Thenhe went behind among the other workmen to go and help them shove. Theylooked at him queerly, as if to say that they no longer needed his helpand had rather done without him. The cart rolled on, another street ortwo, and then through the open gate of the warehouse. The labourerslooked into one another's eyes uneasily, moved about, pulled the balesoff the cart and dragged them a little farther along the wall. Then theytailed off, one by one, through a small inner door; and he stood therealone, like a fool. A bit later, he heard them laugh and whisper undertheir breaths. When he was tired of waiting, he went up the street again. 

Nobody, nobody, nobody wanted him!

He ground his teeth and clenched his fists. In the street through whichhe had to go, on the spaces outside the hotels sat ladies and gentlementoying with strange foods and sipping their wine out of long goblets. They chattered gaily and tasted and pecked with dainty lips and turned-upnoses. The waiters ran here, there, like slaves. Those coaxing smellsstung like adders and roused evil thoughts in his brain. His stomachfretted awfully and his empty head turned. 

He hurried away. 

In a street with windowless house-fronts, a street without people in it, he felt better. He let his body lean against the iron post of a gas-lamp, stuck his hands in his trouser-pockets and stood there looking at thepaving-stones. Now he was damned if he would take another step, he wouldrather croak here like a beast; then they would have to take him up andknow that he existed. 

The boys coming from school mocked him; they danced in a ring, with him, the big fellow, in the middle. They hung paper flags on his back andsang:

 Hat, hat, Ugly old hat! It serves as a slop-pail and as a hat!

He did not stir. 

Yon came a milk-maid driving up in a cart drawn by dogs. He got a gnawingin his arms, a spout of blood shot to his head and he suddenly felt as ifsomething was going to happen. Just as she drove past, he put his greathand on the edge of the little cart, with one pull took a copper can fromits straw, put it to his mouth and drank; then he sent the can clatteringthrough the window of the first-best house, till the panes rattled again. Looking round--as if bewildered and set going, roused by what he haddone--he caught sight of the frightened little dairy-maid. A mocking grinplayed on his cruel face; he flung his rough arm round her little bodyand lifted the girl out of the cart right up to his face in a fierce hug. 

The boys had fled shrieking. He felt two pairs of hands pulling at hissleeves from below. He loosed the girl and saw two policemen who held himfast and ordered him to go with them. They held him by the arm on eitherside and stepped hurriedly to keep pace with his great strides. Theylooked in dismay at that huge fellow, with his wicked eyes, and then ateach other, as if to ask what they should do. 

They came to a narrow little street, with nobody in it, and stopped at apublic-house:

"Could you do with a dram, mate?" they asked him. 

He looked bewildered, astounded. They all three went inside; and each ofthem drank a big glass of gin. 

The policemen whispered something together; the elder wiped the drinkfrom his moustache and then said, very severely:

"And now, clear out; hurry up! And mind your manners, will you, nexttime!"

He was outside once more, loafing on, along the houses. 

 * * * * *

SPRING

 * * * * *

V

SPRING

Mother stood like a clucking hen among her red-cheeked youngsters. Shewas holding a loaf against her fat stomach and, with a curvedpruning-knife, was cutting off good thick slices which the youngsterssnatched away one by one and stuffed into their pockets. Horienekefetched her basket of knitting and her school-books. She first pulledFonske's stocking up once more, buttoned Sarelke's breeches and wipedLowietje's nose; and, with an admonishing "Straight to school, do youhear, boys?" from mother, the whole band rushed out of the door, throughthe little flower-garden and up the broad unmetalled road, straighttowards the great golden sun which was rising yonder, far behind thepollard alders, in a mighty fire of rays. It was cool outside; the skywas bright blue streaked with glowing shafts aslant the hazy-white cloudsdeep, deep in the heavens. Over the level fields, ever so far, lay astain of pale green and brown; and the slender stalks of the wheat stoodlike needles, quivering in their glittering moisture. The trees werestill nearly bare; and their trunks and tops stood tall and black againstthe clear sky; but, when you saw them together, in rows or littleclusters, there was a soft yellow-green colour over them, spotted withgleaming buds ready to burst. A soft wind, just warm enough to thaw thefrost, worked its way into and through everything and made it all shakeand swarm till it was twisted full of restless, growing life. That windcurled through the youngsters' tangled hair and coloured their roundcheeks cherry-red. They ran and romped through the dry sand, stampingtill it flew above their heads. They were mad with enjoyment. 

Trientje stood in the doorway, in her little shirt, with her stomachsticking out, watching her brothers as they disappeared; and, when shesaw them no longer, she thrust her fists into her sockets, opened hermouth wide and started a-crying, until mother's hands lifted her up bythe arms and mother's thick lips gave her a hearty kiss. 

Horieneke came walking step by step under the lime-trees, along thenarrow grass-path beside the sand, keeping her eyes fixed on the play ofher knitting-needles. When she reached the bridge that crossed the brook, she looked round after her brothers. They had run down the slope and werenow trotting wildly one after the other through the rich brown grass, pulling up all the white and yellow flowers, one by one, till their armswere crammed with them. Horieneke took out her catechism, laid it open onthe low rail and sat there cheerfully waiting. Sarelke had crept throughthe water-flags until he was close to the brook and, through the clear, gleaming blue water, watched a little fish frisking about. In a moment, his wooden shoes and his stockings were off and one leg was in the water, trying it: it was cold; and he felt a shiver right down his back. Ripplesplayed on the smooth blue and widened out to the bank. The little fishwas gone, but so was the cold; and he saw more fish, farther away: quicknow, the other leg in the water! He pulled his breeches up high and therehe stood, with the water well above his knees, peering out for fish. Thewater was clear as glass; and he saw swarms of them playing, dartingswiftly up and down, to and fro like arrows: they shot past in shoalsthat held together like long snakes, in among the moss and the reeds andbetween the stones, winding through slits and crannies. He shouted aloudfor joy. Bertje and Wartje and the others all had their stockings off andstood in the water bending down to look, making funnels of their hands inthe water, where it rustled in little streams between two grass-sodsthrough which the fish had to pass. Whenever they felt one wriggling intheir hands they yelled and screamed and sprang out of the brook to putit into their wooden shoes, which stood on the bank, scooped full ofwater. There they loitered examining those beasties from close by: thosefish were theirs now; and they would let them swim about in the big tubat home and give them a bit of their bread and butter every day, so thatthey might grow into great big pike. And now back to the runnel for more. 

"Boys, I'll tell mother!" cried Horieneke. 

But they did not hear and just kept on as before. Fonske had not beenable to catch one yet and his fat legs were turning blue with the cold. In front of him stood Bertje, stooping and peering into the water, withhis hands ready to grasp; and Fonske saw such a lovely little runnel fromhis neck to halfway down his back, all bare skin. He carefully scoopedhis hands full of water and let it trickle gently inside Bertje's shirt. The boy growled; and Fonske, screaming with laughter, skipped out of thebrook. Now came a romping and stamping in the water, a dashing andsplashing with their hands till it turned to a rain of gleaming dropsthat fell on their heads and wetted their clothes through and through. And a bawling! And a plashing with their bare legs till the spray spoutedhigh over the bank. 

"The constable!" cried Horieneke. 

The sport was over. Like lightning they all sprang out of the brook, caught up their wooden shoes with the little fish in them and ran as hardas they could through the grass to the bridge. There only did theyventure to look round. Hurriedly they turned down their breeches, driedtheir shiny cheeks and dripping hair with one another's handkerchiefs andthen marched all together through the sun and wind to school. 

In the village square they wandered about among the other boys, silentlyshowed their catch, hid their shoes in the hawthorn-hedge behind thechurchyard and stayed playing until schoolmaster's bell rang. 

Boys and girls, each on their own side, disappeared through the gate; andthe street was now silent as the grave. After a while, there came throughthe open window of the school first a sort of buzzing and humming andthen a repetition in chorus, a rhythmical spelling aloud: b-u-t, but;t-e-r, ter: butter; B-a, Ba; b-e-l, bel: Babel; ever on and more and morenoisily. In between it all, the sparrows chattered and chirped andfluttered safely in the powdery sand of the playground. 

The sun was now high in the sky and the light glittered on the youngleaves, full of the glad life of youth and gleaming with gold. 

Horieneke, with a few more children, was in another school. They sat, theboys on one side and the girls on the other, on long benches and werewrapped up in studying their communion-book and listening to an old nun, who explained it to them in drawling, snuffling tones. After that, theyhad to say their lesson, one by one; and this all went so quietly, somodestly, so easily, 'twas as if they had the open book before them. Half-way through the morning, they went two and two through the villageto the church, where the priest was waiting to hear their catechism. Thisalso went quietly; and the questions and answers sounded hollow in thatempty church. 

Horieneke sat at the head of the girls; she had caught up almost half ofthem because she always knew her lessons so well and listened soattentively. She was allowed to lead the prayers and was the firstexamined; then she sat looking at the priest and listening to what camefrom his lips. He always gave her a kind smile and held her up to theothers as an example of good conduct. After the catechism, they had leaveto go and play in the convent-garden. In the afternoon, there were newlessons to be learnt and new explanations; and then quietly home. 

So they lived quite secluded, alone, in their own little world of modestyand piety, preparing for the great day. The other youngsters, who wenttheir several ways, felt a certain awe for these school-fellows who onceused to romp and fight with them and who were now so good, so earnest, soneat in their clothes and so polite. The "first-communicants:" the wordhad something sacred about it which they respected; and the little onescounted on their fingers how many years they would have to wait beforethey too were learning their catechism and having leave to play in theconvent-garden. 

To her brothers Horieneke had now become a sacred thing, like a guardianangel who watched over them everywhere; and they dared do no mischiefwhen she was by. She no longer played with them after school; she was nowtheir "big sister, " to whom they softly whispered the favours which theywished to get out of mother. 

When Trientje saw her sister coming home in the distance, she put out herlittle arms and then would not let her go. For mother, Horieneke had towash the dishes, darn the stockings and, when the baby cried, sit forhours rocking it in the cradle or dandling it on her lap, like a littleyoung mother. 

Holding Trientje by the hand and carrying the other on her arm, she wouldwalk along the paths of the garden and then put them both down on thebench in the box arbour, while she tended the plants and shrubs that werebeginning to shoot. 

In the evening, when the bell rang for benediction, she called all herlittle brothers and they went off to church together. From every sidecame wives in hooded cloaks and lads in wooden shoes that stamped on thegreat floor till it echoed in the silent nave. 

The choir was a semicircular, homely little chapel, with narrow pointedwindows, black at this hour, like deep holes, with leads outlining saintsin shapeless dark patches of colour. The altar was a mass of burningcandles; and a flickering gleam fell on the brass candlesticks, thelittle gold leaves and the artificial flowers and on the corners of thesilver monstrance, which stood glittering high up in a little white satinhouse. All of this was clouded in a blue smoke which rose from the holesof the censer continuously swung to and fro by the arm of a roguishserving-boy. Far at the back, in the dark, in the black stripes of shadowcast by the pillars or under the cold bright patch of a lamp or a standof votive candles was an old wife, huddled under her hood, with bentback, praying, and here and there a troop of boys who by turns droppedtheir wooden shoes or fought with one another's rosaries. 

Near the communion-bench knelt Horieneke, her eyes wide open, full ofbrightness and gladness and ecstacy, face to face with Our Lord. Theincense smelt so good and the whole little church was filled with thetrailing chords of the organ and with soft, plaintive Latin chant. Herlips muttered automatically and the beads glided through her fingers:numbered Hail Marys like so many roses that were to adorn her heartagainst the coming of the great God. Her thoughts wafted her up to Heavenin that wide temple full of glittering lights where, against the highwalls full of pedestals and niches, the saints, all stiff with gold andjewels, stood smiling under their haloes and the nimble angels flew allaround on their white-plaster wings. She had something to ask of everyone of them and they received her prayer in turns. When the priest stoodup in his gleaming silver cope, climbed the three steps and took theBlessed Sacrament in his white hands to give the benediction; when thebell tinkled and the censer flew on high and the organ opened all itsthroats and the glittering monstrance slowly made a cross in the air andabove the heads of the worshippers, she fell forward over herpraying-stool and lay like that, swooning in mute adoration, until allwas silent again, the candles out and she sitting alone there in the darkwith a few black shapes of cloaked women who wandered discreetly from onestation of the Cross to the next. Outside she heard her brothers playingin the church-square. There she joined the little girls of her school;and, arm in arm, they walked along past the dark houses and the silenttrees, each whispering her own tale: about her new dress, her veil, herwhite shoes, her long taper with golden bows; about flowers and beads andprayers. .. . 

After supper, Horieneke had to rock the baby to sleep, while mother movedabout, and then to say the evening prayers out loud, after which they allof them went to bed. On reaching her little bedroom, she visited all theprints and images hanging on the walls. She then undressed and listenedwhether any one was still awake or up. Next she carefully crept down thethree stairs[6] in her little shift and clambered up the ladder to theloft, where all her little brothers lay playing in a great box-bed. Theyknew that she would come and had kept a place for her in the middle. Shesank deep in the straw and, when they all lay still, she went on with thetale which she had broken off yesterday half-way. It was all made up oflong, long stories out of _The Golden Legend_ and wonderful adventures offar beyond the sea in unknown lands. She told it all so prettily, soleisurely; and the children listened like eager little birds. High up inthe dusk of the rafters they saw all those things happening before theireyes in the black depths and saw the mad fairy-dance there, until theydreamed off for good and all and Horieneke was left the only one awake, still telling her story. Then she crept carefully back to her room andinto bed, where she lay counting: how many more days, how many timessleeping and getting up and how many more lessons to learn . .. And thenthe great day! The great day! Slowly she made all the days, with theirspecial happenings, appear before her eyes; and she enjoyed beforehandall those beautiful things which had kept her so long a-longing. When, inher thoughts, it came to Saturday evening and at last, slowly--like a boxwith something wonderful inside which you daren't open--to that Sundaymorning, then her heart began to flutter, a thrill ran through her bodyand, so that she shouldn't weep for gladness, she bit her lips, squeezedher hands between her knees and rubbed them until the ecstasy was passedand she again lay smiling in supreme content and shivering with delight. 

[6] The bedroom behind the kitchen or living-room, in the Flemish cottages, is over the cellar; but this cellar is not entirely underground and is lighted by a very low window at the back. Consequently, the floor of the bedroom is a little higher than that of the living-room and is approached by a flight of two or three steps. 

Time dragged on; cold weather came and rain and it seemed as if it neverwould be summer. And that constant repetition of getting up and going tobed and learning her lessons and counting the hours and the minutesbecame so dreary and seemed to go round and round in an endless circle. 

To-day at last was the long-awaited holiday when Horieneke might go intotown with mother to buy clothes. Her heart throbbed; and she walkedbeside mother, with eyes wide-open, looking round at every window, up onestreet and down another, crying aloud each time for joy when she sawpretty things displayed. They bought white slippers with little bows, asplendid wreath of white lilies of the valley, a great veil of wovenlace, a white-ivory prayer-book, a mother-of-pearl rosary with a littleglass peep-hole in the silver crucifix, showing all manner of prettythings. Horieneke sighed with happiness. Mother haggled and bargained, said within herself that it was "foolishness to waste all that money, "but bought and went on buying; and, every time something new went intothe big basket, it was:

"Don't tell father what it cost, Rieneke!"

All those pretty things were locked away in the bedroom at home and hungup in the oak press, while father was still at work. 

On another evening, when mother and Horieneke were alone at home, theseamstress brought the new clothes: a whole load of white muslin in stiffwhite folds full of satin bows and ribbons and white lace. They had to betried on; and Horieneke stood there, for the first time in her life, allin white, like an angel. But the happiness lasted only for a spell: therecame a noise and every one in the room fled and the clothes were hastilytaken off and put away. 

Every day, when the boys were at school and father in the fields, neighbours came to look at the clothes. Piece after piece was carefullytaken out of the press and spread out for show on the great bed. Thewives felt and tested the material, examined the tucks and seams and theknots and the lining, the bows and ribbons and clapped their handstogether in admiration. It became known all over the village thatHorieneke would be the finest of all in the church. 

The counted days crept slowly by, the sun climbed higher every day andthe mornings and evenings lengthened. Things out of doors changed andgrew as you looked: the young green stood twinkling on every hand; thefields lay like coloured carpets, sharply outlined; and the trees grewlong, pale branches with leaves which stood out like stately plumesagainst the sky, so full of youth and freshness and free from dust as yetand tender. In course of time, white buds came peeping, gleaming amid thedelicate young leaves, till all looked like a spotted altar-cloth: apromising splendour of white blossoms. Here and there in the garden anearly flower came creeping out. Yonder, in the dark-blue wood, patches ofbrown and of pale colour stood out clearly, with a whole variety of vividhues. And it had all come so unexpectedly, all of a sudden, as though, bysome magic of the night, it was all set forth to adorn and grace a greatfestival. 

In the fields, the folk were hard at work. The land was turned up andtorn and broken by the gleaming plough and lay steaming in purple clodsin the sun's life-giving rays. Everything swarmed with life and movement. The houses were done up and coated with fresh whitewash, the shutterspainted green, till it all shouted from afar in a glad mosaic, with theblue of the sky and the young leafage of the trees, under the brown, moss-grown roofs. 

And the days crept on, each counted and marked off: so many white stripeson the rafters and black stripes on the almanack; they fell away one byone and the Saturday came, the long-expected eve of the great Sunday. Quite early, before sunrise, the linen hung outside, the white smocks andshirts waving, like fluttering pennons, from the clothes-lines in thewhite orchard. Horieneke also was up betimes and helping mother in herwork. From top to bottom everything had to be altered and done over againand cleansed. It was only with difficulty that she got to school. Thelast time! To-day, the great examination of conscience, the generalconfession and the communion-practice; and, to-night, everything to belaid out ready for to-morrow morning: all this kept running anyhowthrough her head and among the lines of her lesson-book. 

Half-way through the morning they went to church. The children there alllooked so glad, so happy and so clean and neat in their second-bestclothes and so nicely washed. They now made their confessions for thelast time; and it all went so pleasantly: they had done no wrong for sucha long while and all their sins had already been forgiven two or threetimes over, yesterday and the day before. They sat in two long rowswaiting their turns and thinking over, right away back to their far-offbabyhood, whether nothing had been forgotten or omitted: their littlehearts must be quite stainless now and pure. When they were tired ofexamining their consciences, they fell to praying, with their eyes fixedupon the saint who stood before them on his pedestal, or else watched theother youngsters going in and out by turns. 

The little church looked its best, neat as a new pin: the floor wasfreshly scrubbed and the chairs placed side by side in straight rows; thebrasswork shone like gold; and a new communion-cloth hung, like asnow-white barrier, in front of the sanctuary. The velvet banners werestripped of their linen covers; and the blue vases, with bright flowersand silver bunches of grapes, were put out on the altar, as onfeast-days. And all of this was for to-morrow! And for them!

All the time it was deathly still, with not a sound but that of theyoungsters going in and out of the creaking confessional. Now and thenthe church-door flapped open and banged to, when one of the children hadfinished and went away. Their little souls were white as new-fallen snowand bedight with indulgences and prayers. On their faces lay the freshinnocence of babes brought to baptism or of laughing angels' heads and intheir wide eyes everything was reflected festively and at its best; theyfelt so light and lived on little but longing and a holy fear of theirown worthiness: that great, incredible thing of the morrow was suddenlygoing to change them from children into grown-up people!

They just gave themselves time to have their dinners in a hurry; and thenback to school, where they were to learn how to receive communion. A fewbenches placed next to one another represented the communion-rails; andthere they practised the whole afternoon: with studied piety, their handsfolded and their heads bowed, they learnt how to genuflect, how to rise, how to approach in ranks and return at a sign from the old nun, whotapped with a key on the arm of her chair each time that a new row ofyoungsters had to start, kneel or go back. In a short time this went asexactly, as evenly as could be, just like soldiers drilling. Finally, they had to recite once more their acts of faith, adoration andthanksgiving; and Horieneke and the first of the little boys had to writeout on large sheets of paper the preparation and thanks which they hadlearnt by heart, to be read to-morrow in church. After that, they weredrawn up in line and silently and mysteriously led into the convent. 

The children held their breath and walked carefully down long passages, between high, white walls, past closed doors with inscriptions in Gothicletters and a smell of clean linen and apples: ever on and on, throughmore passages, till they reached a large hall full of chairs where MotherPrioress--a fat and stately nun, with her great big head covered by hercap and her hands in her sleeves--sat upon a throne. They had to filepast her, one by one, with a low bow, and then sit down. 

Mother Prioress settled herself in her seat, coughed and, in a rich, throaty voice, began by telling the youngsters how they were to addressOur Lord; told stories of children who had become saints; and she endedby slowly and cautiously producing a little glass case in which a thornout of Our Lord's crown lay exposed on a red-velvet cushion. And thenthey were sent home. 

On the way, Horieneke came upon her brothers playing in the sand. Theyhad scooped it up in their wooden shoes and poured it into a heap in themiddle of the road and then wetted it; and now they were boring all sortsof holes in it and tunnels and passages and making it into arats'-castle. She let them be, gathered up her little skirts, so as notto dirty them, and passed by on one side. 

Mother was up to her elbows in the golden dough of the cakebread, stirring and beating and patting the jumble of eggs and flour and milk. Horieneke took the crying baby out of the cradle, shaking and tossing itin the air, and went into the garden just outside the door. The goldenafternoon sun lay all around and everything was radiant with translucidgreen. The little path lay neatly raked and the yellow daffodils stood, like brass trumpets, closely ranked on their stalks; under the shrubsbright violets peeped out with raised eyebrows, like the grinning facesof little old wives. The whole garden was filled with a scent of freshjasmine and a cool fragrance of cherry-blossom and peach. 

It was all so still and peaceful that Horieneke, who had begun to sing, stopped in the middle and stood listening to the chaffinches and siskinschattering pell-mell. 

From there she went to her little bedroom, laid the child on her bed anddrew the curtains before the window which let in the sun in a thousandslender beams of dusty light. The pictures and images gleamed on the walland the saints seemed to smile with happiness in that cool air, fragrantof gillyflowers and white jasmine. She took out her new prayer-book, flicked the silver clasp open and shut and played with the little shaftof light which the gilt edge sent running all round the white walls. Thenshe stood musing for a long time, gazing out through the little curtainsat those white trees in blossom, around and above which the golden pollendanced, and at all that huge green field and the everlasting sun and allthe blue on the horizon. And, feeling tired, she laid her head on the bedbeside the baby and lingered there, dreaming of all the delight andbeauty of the morrow. 

Mother called her and Horieneke came down. Mam'selle Julie was there, whohad promised to come and curl the child's hair. Mam'selle put on a greatapron and began to undress Horieneke; then a great tub of rain-water wascarried in and the girl was scrubbed and washed with scented soap tillthe whole tub was full of suds. Her head was washed as well and her hairplaited into little braids, which were rolled up one by one and wound incurl-papers and fastened to her head, under a net. Her cheeks and neckshone like transparent china with the rosy blood coursing underneath. When she was done, Mam'selle Julie went off to the other communicants. 

The boys were lying on their backs, under the walnut-tree, talking, whenHorieneke came past. They looked at the funny twists on her head and wenton talking: Wartje longed most of all to put on his new breeches; Fonskewas glad that Uncle Petrus was coming to-morrow and Aunt Stanske andCousin Isidoor; Bertje because of the dog-cart[7] and the dogs and thechance of a ride; Wartje because of all that aunt would bring with her inher great wicker basket; and Dolfke longed for father to come home fromwork, so that he might help to clean the rabbits. 

[7] The Flemish low-wheeled cart drawn by dogs. 

The sun played with the gold in the leaves of the walnut-tree; and theradiant tree-top was all aswarm and astir and little golden shafts wereshooting in all directions. The first butterfly of the year rocked like awhite flower through the air. 

"I smell something!" said Dolfke. 

They all sniffed and:

"Mates! They're taking the cake-bread out of the oven!"

They rushed indoors one on top of the other. On the table lay fourgolden-yellow brown-crusted loaves, as big as cart-wheels, steaming tillthe whole house smelt of them. 

"First let it cool! Then you can eat it, " said mother and gave each ofthem a flat scone. 

"Yes, mother. "

And they trotted round the kitchen holding their treasures high abovetheir heads and screaming with delight. 

Behind the elder-hedge they heard father's voice humming:

 When the sorrel shows, 'Tis then the month of May, O!. .. 

They ran to him, took the tools out of his hands and:

"Father, the rabbits! The rabbits now, father?"

"Will it be fine weather to-morrow?" asked Horieneke. 

"For sure, child: just see how clear the sun is setting. "

He pointed to the west; and the boys stood on tip-toe to see the sinking, dull-glowing disk hang glittering in its gulf of orange cloud-reefs, pierced through and through with bright rays that melted away high in thepale blue and grey, while that disk hung there so calmly, as thoughfrozen into the sky for ever. 

Father had one or two things to do and then the boys might come along tothe rabbits. 

"The two white ones, eh, father?"

Father nodded yes; and Sarelke and Dolfke skipped along the boards to thehutch and came back each carrying a long white rabbit by the ears. 

Dolfke held his close to the ground, hidden behind a tree, so that itshouldn't see the other's blood and foresee its own death. While fatherwas sharpening his knife, Fonske took a cord and tied the hind-legs ofSarelke's rabbit and hung it, head down, on a nail under the eaves. Father struck it behind the ears so that it was dazed and, rolling itseyes, remained hanging stock-still. Before it had time to scream, theknife was in its neck and the throat was cut open. A little stream ofdark blood trickled to the ground and clotted; and some of it hung likean icicle from the beard, which dripped incessantly with red drops. 

Fonske carefully put his finger to the rabbit's nose and licked off adrop of blood. 

"It's going home, " said Sarelke. 

"Is it dead, father?" sighed Wartje. 

"Stone-dead, my boy. "

He ripped one buttock with his knife and pulled off the skin; then theother, so that the blue flesh was laid bare and the little purple veins. One more tug and the creature hung disfigured beyond all knowledge, inits bare buttocks and its fat, bulging paunch, with its head all overblood and its eyes sticking out. The belly and breast were cut open fromend to end and the guts removed; the gall-bladder was flung into thecess-pool; two bits of stick, to keep the hind-legs and the skin of thestomach apart, and the thing was done. The other was treated likewise;and the two rabbits hung skinned and cleaned, stiffening high up on thegable-end. 

Meanwhile mother had got supper ready: a heap of steaming potatoessoaking in melted butter and, after that, bread-and-butter and a pan ofporridge. Horieneke, by way of a treat, got a couple of eggs and a sliceof the new cakebread; and she sat enjoying this at the small table. Aftersupper, the boys had to be washed and cleaned. They started undressinghere and undressing there; serge breeches and jackets flew over thefloor; and one after the other they were taken in hand by mother, besidea kettle of water, where they were rubbed and rinsed with foamingsoap-suds. Then each was given a clean shirt; and away to bed with them!They jumped and, with their shirt-tails waving behind them, skipped aboutand smacked one another until father came along and stopped their game. Mother had still her floor to scrub; and Horieneke read out eveningprayers while the boys knelt beside their bed. 

Now all grew still. Father smoked a pipe and took a stroll in themoonlight through the orchard, where he had always something to lookafter or to do. Indoors the broom went steadily over the floor; wholekettlefuls of water were poured out and swept away and rubbed dry. Thenthe stove was lit; and, while mother blacked the shoes, father made thecoffee. They mumbled a bit together--about to-morrow's doings, about thechildren, the work, the hard times and their troublesome landlord, thefarmer of the woodside--when there came a noise from the little bedroomand the door creaked softly. Horieneke suddenly appeared in the middle ofthe floor in her little nightgown; and, before father and mother had gotover their surprise, the child was on her knees, asking:

"Forgive me, father and mother, for all the wrong that I have done you inmy life; and I promise you now to be always good and obedient. .. . "

Mother was furious at first; and then, at the sight of the kneelingfigure and the sound of the tearful little voice, her anger fell and shefelt like crying. Father hated all that sentimental rubbish:

"Come, you baggage, quick to bed!. .. Forgive you? What for?. .. Nonsense, nonsense!"

The child kept on weeping:

"Father, please, it's my first communion to-morrow and we must firstreceive forgiveness: Sister at school said so. .. . "

"The sisters at school are mad! And they'll make you mad too! To bed withyou now, d'you hear?"

Mother could stand it no longer; she sobbed aloud, took Horieneke underthe arms and lifted her to her breast. She felt a lump in her throat andcould hardly get out her words:

"It's all forgiven, my darling. God bless you and keep you! And now goquick to bed; you have to be up early to-morrow. "

Horieneke put her arm over mother's shoulders and whispered softly in herear:

"I have something else to ask you, mother. All the children's parents aregoing to communion to-morrow: shall you too, mother?"

"Make your heart easy, dear; it'll be all right. "

"Mother, will you call me in good time to-morrow morning?"

"Yes, yes; go to bed. "

The house grew quiet as the grave; and soon a manifold snoring andgrunting sounded all through the bedroom and the loft. Outside it wastwilight and the blossoms shone pale white in the orchard. The cricketschirped far and near. .. . 

This was the last evening and morning: when it was once more so late anddark, everything would be over and done! All those days, all that longarray of light and darkness, of learning and repeating lessons--a goodtime nevertheless--was past and gone; and, now that the great thing, always so remote, so inaccessible, was close at hand, she was almostsorry that the longing and the aching were to cease and she almost feltafraid. Should she dare to sleep to-night? No. 'Twas so good to lie awakethinking; and she had still so much praying to do: her heart was stillfar from ready and prepared. 

"O God, I am a poor little child and Thou art willing to come to me. .. . Dear Virgin Mary, make my soul as pure as snow, so that it may become aworthy dwelling-place for thy Divine Son. "

The white dress now lay spread out upon the best bed in the big bedroomand her wreath too, with all the rest. She already saw herself clad inall that white wealth like a little queen, standing laughing through hergolden curls! She felt the little knots of paper on her head; to-morrowthey would be released and would open into a cloud of ringlets; and thepeople, who would all look at her; and aunt. .. . Now just to recite herwords once more for to-morrow in church. .. . And that pretty picture whichthe priest would give her. .. . Was she sure that nothing was forgotten?Just let her think again: and her candle-cloth? Yes, that was theretoo. .. . What could the time be? The clock was ticking like a heavy chap'sfootstep downstairs in the kitchen. It was deathly quiet everywhere. Nowshe would lie and wait until the clock struck, so that she might know howlong it would be before it grew light. Her eyes were so tired and allsorts of things were walking higgledy-piggledy up the white wall. .. . 

Then, in the solemn stillness, the nightingale began to sing. Three clearnotes rang out from the echoing coppice; it was like the voice of theorgan in a great church. It sounded over the fields, to die away in alow, hushed fluting. Now, louder and staccato, like a spiral stair ofmetallic sound, the notes rang out, high and low alternately, inquickening time, a running, rustling and rioting, with long-drawnpipings, wonderfully sweet, that rose in a storm of bell-like tinklings, limpid as water, with a strength, a violence, a precision exceeding themusic of a hundred thousand tipsy carrillons pealing through the silentnight. And now again the notes were softly weaving their fabric of sound:bewitchingly quiet, intimately sweet, musingly careful, like the music oftiny glass bells; and once more they were louder and again they faintedaway, borne on the still wind like the murmur of angels praying. 

The blue velvety canopy was stretched on high, studded with twinklingstars; and all about the country-side the trees stood white. On thewinding paths, among the pinks, anemones, guelder-roses andjasmine-bushes, walked stately white figures in trailing garments, withwreaths of white roses and yellow flowers gleaming on their goldentresses, which they shook out over their white shoulders. All the worldwas one pure vista full of blue, curling mist and fresh, untastedfragrance. A soft melody of dreamy song was wafted through the air. AndHorieneke saw herself also playing in that great garden, an angel amongangels. Ropes hung stretched from tree to tree; and they swung upon themand rocked with streaming hair and fluttering garments, floating highabove the tree-tops, light as the wind, in a shower of white blossoms. They sang all together, with those who lay on the beds of white liliesand violets: a song of unheard sweetness. Not one spoke of leaving off orgoing home; they only wished to stay like that, without rain or darkness;there was a continual happy frolic, a glad gaiety, in those spacioushalls where, in spite of the singing and the music, all things were yetso deliciously, languidly still, still as the moonlight. 

Yonder, by the dark wood, the steady swish of a sickle was heard; andthis made a fearsome noise in the tenuous night. A gigantic man stoodthere; his head looked over the trees and his wide-stretched arms swungthe sickle and a pick-hook; and, stroke by stroke, the foliage and theflowers fell beneath his hands as he passed. The singing graduallyceased, the swings fell slack and the frolic changed into an anxiouswaiting, as before thunder. One and all stood in terror and dismaystaring at that giant approaching. The blue of the sky darkened and theangels vanished, like lamps that were blown out. The flowers were fadedand the whole plain lay mown flat, like a stricken wilderness; and thatfellow with his sickle, who now drew himself up to contemplate hisfinished work, was . .. Her father!

She started awake and trembled with fright. It had been so beautiful thatshe sighed at the thought of it; and outside was the twilight ofadvancing dawn. It was daylight! Sunday! She jumped out of bed in a flashand pulled open the window. The trees were there still and the flowerstoo and all the white of last night, but so pale, dim and colourlessbeside the glittering brightness of a moment ago . .. And never an angel!She gave a sigh. The sky was hung with a thick grey shroud; and in theeast a long thin cleft had been torn in the grey; and behind that, deepdown, was a dull-golden glow, gleaming like a great brazen serpent. Akeen wind shook the cherry-blossom and blew a cold, fragrant air into thewindow. All the green distance lay dead as yet, half-hidden, asleep inthe morning mist; and neither man nor beast was visible, nor even awreath of smoke from a chimney. 

What was the time? She threw a wrap over her shoulders, which weregetting chilled, and went carefully down the bedroom steps. It was stilldark in the kitchen. She groped, found and lit a sulphur match and liftedthe flame to the clock. Four! She was so much used to seeing the hands inthat position in the afternoon and they now looked so silly that shestood for a long time thinking, foolishly, what she ought to do: callmother or creep back into bed and sleep. She felt so uncomfortably coldand it was still so dark: she went up again and stood looking out. 

The birds twittered in the trees and the wide cleft in the east yawnedwider and wider. Was it going to be a fine day after all? Everything forwhich she had waited so long was there now and so strange, so totallydifferent from what she had imagined: instead of that leaping gladnessthere was something like fear and nervous trembling; she could have wept;and, merely for the sake of doing something, she went down on her kneesbeside the bed and said the prayers which she had learnt by heart:

"Lord God, I give Thee my heart. Deign to make Thyself a worthy dwellingin it and to abide there all the days of my life. .. . "

The clock struck; it was half-past four and no one yet astir. 

Now she went downstairs again. In the room lay her white dress, herwreath, her prayer-book: it was all ready; if only somebody would wake!Dared she call? They lay sleeping side by side: father was snoring, withhis mouth open, and mother's fat stomach and breasts rose and fellsteadily. 

"Mother!"

Nobody heard. 

"Mother!!"

And then she pulled at the coverlet and cried repeatedly, a little loudereach time:

"Mother! Mother!! Mother!!!"

That was better. Mother turned on her side, lifted her head and rubbedher eyes with her hands. 

"Mother, it's nearly five; we shall be late!"

Mother, drunk with sleep, kept on looking at the window and yawning:

"Yes, child, I'll come at once. "

She got up and came out in her short blue petticoat stretched round herfat hips, with an open slit behind, and her loose jacket and wooden shoeson. She lit the stove. Horieneke read her morning prayers. Mother's heavyshoes clattered over the floor outside and in again; she put on and tookoff the iron pots with the goats' food, drew fresh water and made thecoffee. 

Mam'selle Julie was coming along the rough road. 

"You're in good time!" cried mother from the doorway. 

"Good-morning, Frazie. Up already, Horieneke? It'll be a fine dayto-day. "

She took off her hooded cloak, put on a clean apron and turned up hersleeves. Horieneke was washed all over again while mother poured out thecoffee. Then they sat down. Horieneke kept her lips tight-closed so asnot to forget that she must remain fasting. She slowly pulled on her newstockings and stretched out her hand to the bench on which the whiteslippers lay. She took off her sleeping-jacket and her little skirt andstood waiting in her shift. When the tongs were well warmed, Mam'selleJulie seized the little paper twists in the hot iron and opened them out. From each fold a curled tress came rolling down; and at last, combed outand bound up with blue-silk ribbon, it all stood about her head in alight mist of pale-gold silk, like a wreath of light around her bright, fresh face. Her dirty shift was dragged off downwards and mother fetchedthe new scapular and laid it over the child's bare shoulders. Thefirst-communion chemise was of fine white linen and trimmed with crochetlace. Julie took out the folds and drew it over Horieneke's head. Thencame white petticoats, bodices and skirts. The child stood passively, inthe middle of the floor, with her arms wide apart to give free room toJulie, who crept round on her knees, sticking in a pin here, smoothing acrease there. Mother fetched the things as they were wanted. There was aconstant discussing, approving, asking if it wouldn't meet or if it hungtoo wide, all in a whisper, so as not to wake the boys. 

There came a scrabbling overhead and down the stairs; and, before any onesuspected it, Bertje stood dancing round Horieneke in his shirt. 

"Jesu-Maria! Oo, you rascal!"

And the corset which mother held in her hand was sent flying up thestairs after the boy, who in three jumps was gone and up above. Theothers lay laughing in bed when Bertje told them that he had seenHorieneke all in white, with a bunch of red-gold curls round her head, and that mother had thrown something at him. 

The corset was laced up and Mam'selle Julie told the child to hold herbreath to let them get her body tighter. Now for the white frock: theskirt was slipped down over her head until it stood out in light, stiffpleats; the white bodice encased her body firmly and stuck out above theshoulders, its puffed sleeves trimmed with little white-satin bows andribbons at every seam and fold. Over it hung the veil, which shrouded heras in a white cloud. The wreath was put on, looked at from a distance andput on again until it was right at last, with the glittering beads infront, shining among the auburn curls, and the long streamer of threadedlilies of the valley behind, nestling in the tresses on her back. Thewhite gloves, her prayer-book and candle-cloth, a few pennies in her beadpurse; and 'twas done. 

The child was constantly twisted and turned and examined from every side. She did not know herself in all her splendour: the Horieneke ofyesterday, in her blue bird's-eye bib and black frock was a poor thingcompared with the present Horieneke, something far removed from thiswhite apparition, something quite forgotten. She stood stiff as a post inthe middle of the kitchen, without daring to look round or stir; she feltso light and airy in those rustling folds and pleats and all that muslinthat she seemed not to touch the ground. She did not know what to do withher arms, how to tread with her feet; and her thoughts were straying: thepart she had to play was all gone out of her head; she would be as fineas this all day long, but oh, so uncomfortable!

Mother put on stockings and shoes, donned her cap, turned her apron, threw her cloak over her shoulders; she called her husband; then:

"There, boys, we're off; don't forget your drop of holy water, all ofyou!"

The door fell back into the latch with a bang; and the three of them wereon the road. A gust of wind laden with white blossoms out of the orchardgreeted them. Horieneke held the tips of her veil closed against the windand stepped out like a little maid in a procession. The two women camebehind and had no eyes for anything but Horieneke: the fall of thosewhite folds, the whirling of the veil and the dancing of the lilies ofthe valley in the auburn locks. They said nothing. 

The sky still hung grey with its yawning cleft widening in the east; andout of it there beamed a sober, uncertain light, which fell uponeverything with a dead gleam: it was like noonday in winter. Over thefields and in the trees drifted thin wisps of mist, like floating blueveils blown on by the wind. Below in the meadow the cock had startedcrowing amid his flock of peacefully pecking pullets. It was very fresh, rather cold indeed, out on the high road. 

All the little paths led to the church; and in every direction, along theflat fields, came people in their very best, with little white maids. Thewind played in their white veils and set them waving and flapping likewet flags. 

"The children'll have good weather, " said Mam'selle Julie; and, a littlelater, to Horieneke, "What are you going to ask of Our Lord now, dear?"

"Oh, so much, so much, Mam'selle Julie! I myself hardly know. .. . Forfather and mother and all the family and that I may always be a good girland stay at home with them and not fall among wicked people and that wemay all live a long time and go to Heaven. .. . "

"And that the harvest may succeed and we be able to pay the rent . .. Andfor the farmer . .. And that father may keep in health and be fit towork, " mother ordered. 

They reached the village. Mother remained waiting among the folk in thestreet; Horieneke, with the other youngsters, went through theschool-gates where their wax tapers stood burning above the bunches ofgold flowers and leaves shining in the warm light. The children looked atone another's clothes, whispered in one another's ears what theirs hadcost and wrangled as to which looked the prettiest. The boys vied withone another in showing their bright pennies and their steel watch-chains. 

The procession filed out: first the acolytes, in scarlet, with gleamingcrucifix, brass candle-sticks and censer, followed by boys and girlssymbolically dressed, a lilting dance of flags and banners in brilliantcolours. Next came the priest, in a gorgeous vestment stiff with silk andsilver thread and gold tracery; and, in two rows, on either side of thestreet, preceded by four little angels with gold wings, thefirst-communicants, really such on this occasion, in their properclothes, with the great wax tapers in their white-gloved hands and a glowin their faces and laughter in their eyes. All the people crowded afterthem, through the street to the church. The bells rang out, the priestsang with the sacristan and the whole procession triumphantly entered thewide church-doors. There was a mighty stamping and pushing to get nearand to see the children sitting in straight rows on the front benches ofthe nave. The girls settled in their clothes and the boys looked down attheir stiff, wide cloth breeches and their new shoes, or shoved theirfingers up their noses or into their tight collar-bands. The organ dronedout a mighty prelude; the priest, all in gold, stood at the altar; theceremony began; the people were silent and prayed over theirprayer-books. 

The sun appeared! And green and red and yellow shafts of light slantedthrough the stained-glass panes and mingled with the blueincense-wreaths. They made the corners of the brasswork shine and broughtsmiles to the faces of the saints in their niches. A splash of gold fellon the curly heads of the children, dark and fair; and tiny rays flashedupon the gilt edges of their prayer-books. The congregation prayeddiligently and the full voices sang the joyful _Gloria in excelsis_ withthe organ. 

After the Gospel, the priest hung up his chasuble on the stand andmounted the pulpit. After a noisy shifting of chairs and dragging of feetand coughing, the people sat still, with their faces turned to thepriest. He began by reading out the notices in a snuffling tone: theintentions of the masses for the ensuing week; the names of those aboutto be married or lately deceased. Then he waited, cast his eyes over thatlevel multitude of raised heads, pulled up his white sleeves and turnedhis face towards the children. His drawling voice wished them_proficiat_. 

It was the first time in their lives that the youngsters saw that faceturned expressly towards them from a pulpit and also the first time thatthey listened to the sermon with attention. They kept their eyes fixed onthe priest so as not to lose a word. The great day had arrived; a fewmoments more and they would be completing the solemn task, they, smallchildren, the task that was denied to the pure angels in heaven. 

"And that work must be the foundation on which all your future life isbased. Your souls are now so clean, so pure, they are shining like clearwater and are quite spotless. For years we have taught and instructed andprepared you in order to teach your virgin hearts, this day, now, in thisbeautiful chapel, to receive that strengthening food, that miracle ofGod's love. Remember it always: this is the happiest day of your lives!You are still innocent and about to receive the Bread that raises thedead, cleanses sinners and purifies the fallen. You are still in yourfirst youth, without experience of life, and are already allowed toapproach the Holy Table and share the strengthening food that supportsmen and women in the trials of life. This also is the propitious moment, the mighty hour in which Our Lord can refuse you nothing that you askHim. So make use of it, ask Him much, ask Him everything: for yourparents and your masters, who have done so much for you, for yourpastors, your village and especially for yourselves, that He may keep youfrom sin and continue to dwell in your hearts and allow you to grow upinto stout champions of the faith and of your religion. It is thehappiest day of your lives. You are here now, to-day, with your bright, clear eyes, young and beautiful as angels; we have watched over you, sheltered you against all that could have harmed or offended yourinnocence, far from the corrupt world of whose existence you have noteven known. But to-morrow you will enter the wide world, with only yourweak flesh to fight against life's dangers: depravity, falsehood, liesand sin. Now life will begin for you, now for the first time will you becalled upon to fight, to show courage and to stand firm. How many ofthose who once sat where you are now sitting and who were pure andinnocent as yourselves have now, alas, become lost sinners, Judases whohave rejected their God, devils as roaring lions going about seeking whomthey may devour! Be strong, listen to your good parents: it is to themalone that you will have to listen henceforth. .. . "

He turned round to the other side and, continuing with the same rise andfall in his voice, the same gestures of his thin right arm, with theflowing white sleeve, and the same movement of his sharp profile high upabove the congregation, he began once more:

"To you, fathers and mothers, I also wish a cordial _proficiat_; for youalso this is a glad and memorable day. How long is it not since you werekneeling there! And yet that day always lingers in your memory. Sincethat time you have been plunged into the world, have had to struggle andhave perhaps fallen and more than once have known your courage fail you. Now your children are sitting there! For years you have left them to ourcare and to-day we give them back to you, instructed, enriched andsupplied with all that they can need to pass onward. You receive themthis day from our hands pure and innocent as on the day of their baptism. It is for you henceforth to preserve and to maintain that virtue andpurity in them; it is for you to bring up these children so that laterthey may be exemplary Christians. See to it that your own conduct edifiesthem: it is according to you and all your actions that they will ordertheir lives and take example. Admonish them in good season and chastisethem when necessary: 'He that spareth the rod hateth his son, ' says theHoly Ghost. And keep your eyes open, for God will ask an account of yourstewardship and will reward or punish you according as you have broughtthem up well or ill. A good son, a virtuous daughter are the joy and thecomfort of their parents. "

The congregation were greatly impressed. The mothers wept: the priest wassuch a good, worthy old man, whom they had known all their lives; andthey liked hearing him say all those beautiful things: that reference totheir own childhood and to their youngsters, whom they now saw sittingthere so good and saintlike, waiting to receive Our Lord, brought thetears to their eyes; and it did them good to feel their hearts throb, tofeel that lump in their throats; and they let the tears flow: after all, it was from gladness. 

The organ played softly and the changing tones mingled with the bluewreaths that ascended from the sanctuary in a fragrant cloud, lingeringover the congregation. The celebrant offered the bread and wine to OurFather in Heaven. And all this took time; the children were tired bytheir tense concentration; their prayers had all been said two and threetimes over; and they were now vacantly waiting and longing, looking attheir clothes, at the stained-glass windows in the choir or St. Anne inher crimson cloak, or counting the stars that were painted high up on thestone ceiling. 

The altar-bell tinkled twice and thrice in succession; the _Sanctus_ wassung; and after that the organ was silenced. A hush fell over thecongregation and all heads dropped, as though mown down, in deepreverence: not one dared look up. The priest genuflected, the bellsounded repeatedly and, amid that great hush, thrice three notes of thegreat church-bell droned through the church and rang out over the distantfields. Outside, it was all blue and sunshine and silence; everything wasbowed in anxious expectation; it was as though there were nothing erectand alive in the world except that little church and that bell. In thefarthest houses in the village the mothers were now kneeling and beatingtheir breasts, with their thoughts on Our Lord. The God of Heaven andEarth had descended and was filling all things with His awful presence. Carefully, slowly, almost timidly came the _Adoro te_; and the peoplelittle by little raised their heads and sighed, as though relieved andstill quite awed by what had happened or was going to happen. 

And now the ceremony began. After the _Agnus Dei_ and the three tinklesof the bell at the _Domine, non sum dignus_, the four little angels camewith hands folded and heads bowed, with their gold-paper wings carefullyfurled behind them, and walked reverently to the front of the church. Horieneke stood up, took her great sheet of paper and, in her clearvoice, read out her piece so that all the congregation could hear, thoughshe stopped to find her words at times and faltered here and therebecause her heart was beating so violently and she had such a catch inher throat:

"Then Thou wilt come to us, Almighty God! To us poor little sheep who, hardly knowing what we did, have so often offended Thee. We are notworthy to receive Thee, unless Thou say but the word that our souls maybe healed. And, as Thou hast ordained, we will, in fear and confidence, approach Thee as poor little children approaching their kind Father. Wehave nothing wherewith to repay the great love which Thou bearest us; weare needy in all things; and all things must come from Thee. We are stillvery young and have already gone astray, but we repent and are heartilysorry to have caused Thee any grief. And, now that Thou art sounspeakably good to us, we wish to be wholly loyal to Thee and to belongto Thee with heart and soul; dispose of us henceforth as Thy servants andwe shall be filled with joy. Come then, O Jesus; our hearts pant withlonging, our souls are now prepared; we have begged Mary, our dearMother, our guardian angels and our blessed patron saints to make usworthy habitations for Thy majesty. "

The silence was so great that one could hear a leaf fall. Thecongregation wriggled where they knelt to see and held their breaths, full of expectation. The nun struck her key on the back of her chair. Twolittle angels went, step by step, to the communion-bench and the firstrow of boys and girls followed. The little ones now looked very serious. They held their heads bowed and their hands clasped; and their facesshone with heavenly light and silent inner happiness. Horieneke was nowlike a white flower; her transparent little waxen face, her delicatelychiselled nose and closed pink lips looked so angelic under her sunnycurls and the white of her veil. The children approached the choirsilently and slowly: 'twas as though they were floating. At the secondtap of the key, they knelt; one more . .. And their hands were under thelace communion-cloth. From the organ-loft the _Magnificat_ resounded. Thepriest took the ciborium, gave the benediction and with stately treaddescended the altar-steps. In his slender fingers he held the SacredHost, that small white disk which stood out sharply above the silvervessel against the rich violet of his chasuble. The children's heads byturn dropped backwards and fell upon their breasts, in ecstacy. The bellsrang out; the choristers shouted their hymn of praise; the priestmurmured:

"_Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christ . .. _"

The key tapped; and the angels kept leading new rows to the Holy Tableand bringing the others away again. And the great work went on in solemnsilence amid all that jubilant music. The congregation were lifted up, their hearts throbbed and their tears welled with happiness andcontentment. 

The last row had come back; and they were all now kneeling in adorationwhen the head boy read out:

"What shall we return Thee, O Lord, for what Thou hast done for us! Butnow we were mute, prostrate in adoration, amazed and awed by Thy mightypresence in our hearts, bowed down in the dust of our humility; now atlast we dare raise our heads and thank Thee. We beseech Thee that Thouwilt continue to dwell in our hearts, to reign there and to pour forthThy mercies there abundantly. We are frail creatures; and, were it notthat Thou, in Thy compassion, dost uphold us, we should continually andat every moment fall and succumb in the rude gusts of life. We put ourtrust in Thee and we know that Thou wilt succour us and that we shallenter the life everlasting. Amen. "

It was over; and the congregation looked round impatiently to see howthey could get out of church quickest. Their tears were dried and theirthoughts were once more fixed on clothes, home, coffee and cakebread. After the last sign of the cross, the men crowded outside; the motherssought their youngsters, kept them out of the crush for fear of accidentsand marched triumphantly through the two rows of sightseers that stood oneither side of the church-door. Now was the moment for showing-off, forcongratulation and admiration on every side, till the children did notknow which way to turn or what to say; and they were very hungry. All nowwent with their friends to the tavern for a drop of Hollands; and fromthere mother went home with two or three wives of the neighbourhood. 

Horieneke walked behind. She was all by herself and wrapped incontemplation: that great miracle was now over, all of a sudden, and shecould hardly believe it. Instead of enjoying all the happiness for whichshe had waited so long, her heart was full of distress and she feltinclined to cry. She had been so uneasy in church, so shy and frightened:there was the reading of that paper before all those people; and directlyafter, amid all the confusion, Our Lord had come. Hastily and verydistractedly she had said her prayers, had spoken, asked and prayed andthen waited for the miracle, waiting for Our Lord, Who now, living inher, would speak. And nothing had happened, nothing: she had done hervery best to listen amidst the bustle outside and around her . .. And yetnothing, nothing! Meanwhile she had raised her head to breathe . .. Andthe people were leaving and she had to go with them: it was finished! Ithad all been so matter-of-fact, just like the communion-practice ofyesterday, when she had merely swallowed a morsel of bread. Her heartbeat in perplexity and she feared that she had made an unworthycommunion. 

The wind blew under her veil, which flew up in the air behind her. Shewas so pure, so unspotted in all that white; and, cudgel her brains asshe would, she could not remember any fault or sin which she had omittedto confess. Though Our Lord had not spoken to her, He had been there allthe same and she had not heard Him because of all that was happeningaround her. She ought to have been alone there, in a silent church. Evenhere, outside, by the trees, would have been better. 

The wives were asked in to coffee and they stood and waited for Horienekeat the garden-gate. Indoors everything was anyhow: Fonske was going aboutin his shirt, Bertje had one leg in his breeches and Dolfke sat on thefloor, playing with Trientje. Father had made coffee and stood with thebottles and glasses ready, looking dumbfounded at his child, now that hesaw her for the first time in her white clothes. The boys crowded roundshyly; they no longer knew their sister in this great lady; they kepthold of one another shyly, with their fingers in their mouths; they wereunable to speak a word. Mother threw off her cloak and began cuttingcurrant-bread and butter. Horieneke was made to take off her veil andgloves and a towel was fastened under her chin. The wives and youngsterssat down. First a drop to each; all drank to the health of the littlefirst-communicant; they touched glasses. Father poured out and Horienekehad to drink too: she put the stuff to her lips, pulled a wry face andpushed the glass away. The boys dipped and soaked the bread in theircoffee; and the wives started talking about their young days and aboutclothes and the old ways and the fine weather and the fruit-crop. Motherdid nothing but cut fresh slices of bread-and-butter, which were snatchedaway and gobbled up on every side. 

"Eat away!" said father. 

The hostess of "The Four Winds" had been unable to take her eyes offHorieneke all through mass. 

"Damned pretty, like a little angel!" said Stiene Sagaer. 

"And a curly head of hair like a ball of gold! It made one's mouth water!And that wreath!" squealed the farmer's wife from the Rent Farm. 

"Mam'selle Julie had a hand in it. "

"And such pretty manners! Well, dear, Our Lord will be mighty pleasedwith you. "

"And how nicely she read that piece!" said Stiene. "My blood crept when Iheard it. Look here, Wanne Vandoorn was sitting beside me; and, you cantake my word, the good soul couldn't control herself and we both criedtill we sobbed. "

"I felt it too, " said mother. "Such things are cruel hearing. And thepriest. .. . "

"Ah, he knows how to talk, that holy man! He's a pure soul. "

"You'll regret it all your days, Ivo, that you weren't there to see it. "

Father nodded and took another slice of bread-and-butter. 

"It'll take me all the week to tell about it at home, " said the farmer'swife. 

The boys sat making fun among themselves of Stiene Sagaer's crooked noseand the squeaky voice of the farmer's wife. When the wives had doneeating, they stood up and went. 

When they had gone some little way, they turned round again and criedagainst the wind:

"It's going to be fine to-day, Ivo!"

"And warm!" piped the farmer's wife. "Beautiful weather!"

They went down the sand-path, each wending her own way home. 

The boys were now dressed and father, stripped to the waist, went out towash his face under the trees at the pump. His freshly-ironed white shirtwas brought out and his shiny boots and his blue smock-frock andblack-silk cap. After much fuss and turning and seeking, he got ready andthe boys too. Mother was busy with the baby in the cradle; Horieneke wasshowing her new holy pictures to Trientje; and Bertje and the other boyshad gone out to play in the road. The bells rang again, this time forhigh mass. Many small things had still to be rummaged out, clothes to bepinned and buttoned; and the boys, with their Sunday penny in theirpocket, marched up the wide road to high mass. 

The wind had dropped and the sun blazed in the clear blue of the sky, which hung full of unravelled white cloud-threads, showing gold at theedges. A gay light lay over all the young green; the huge fields werefull of waving corn, which swayed and bowed and straightened again, shining in streaks as under clear, transparent water. The trees stoodturned to the sun, as though painted, so bright that from a distance onesaw all the leaves, finely drawn, gleaming against the shadows that laybelow. Here they stood in close hedges on either side of the road, trunkafter trunk, making a dark wall with a dense roof of leafage, whichpresently opened out in a rift at the turn of the road, where fourtree-trunks stood out against the sky; and then the trees turned away tothe left and were drawn up in two new rows, which stretched out besidethe road right across the plain. Here and there a few other trees stoodlonely in the fields, gathered in small clumps, with the light playingbetween them; and far away at the edge of the bright expanse, in a wealthof mingled green, amid the tufted foliage with its changing hues andshadows, the little pointed church showed above the uneven, red-tiledroofs. It was all like a restful dream, made up of Sunday peace. Aboveand around, all the air was sounding with the gay tripping music of thethree bells as they rang together: a laughing song in the glad sunshine, summoning from afar the people who came from every side, clad in theirbest. The boys, in their new red-brown, fustian breeches, standing stiffwith the tailor's crease in them, and their thick, wide jackets and shinyhats, held father's hand or skipped round Horieneke, whom they could notadmire enough. In the village square they hid themselves and went to thebooth to see how they could best spend their pennies. 

The people stayed in the street, looking about, and did not go into thechurch until the little bell tolled out its tinkling summons and the lastlittle maid had been looked at and had disappeared. Then the men knockedout their pipes against the tips of their shoes and sauntered in throughthe wide church-door. 

The incense still hung about the aisles and the sun sifted its goldendust through the stained-glass windows right across the church. Thecongregation stood crowded and crammed together behind their chairs, looking at the gilt of the flowers and at the great mountain of votivecandles that were burning before the altar. The organ had all its pipeswide open; and music streamed forth in great gusts that resounded in thestreet outside. The priest sang and rough men's voices chanted theresponses with the full power of their throats. And the high massproceeded slowly with its pomp of movement and song. The congregationprayed from their books or, overcome by the heat, sat yawning or gazingat the incense-wreaths or started nodding on their chairs. The saintsstood stock-still, smiling from their pedestals and proud in their highday finery. When the singing ceased, one heard through the dreamy murmurof the organ the spluttering of the burning candles and the clatter onthe brass dish of the sacristan making the collection. The priest oncemore mounted the pulpit and, with the same gestures and action, deliveredthe same admonitions as earlier in the morning. Again the people satlistening and weeping; others slept. More organ-music and singing andpraying and the mass came to an end and the priest turned to thecongregation and gave the blessing. They streamed out of church in athick crowd and stood in the road again to see the youngsters pass. Thenall of them made their several ways to the taverns. Thefirst-communicants had to call on aunts and cousins and friends; and thepoorer children went to show their clothes and asked for pennies. 

Horieneke and father and the brothers went straight home to await thevisitors. Before they reached the door, they smelt the butter burning inthe pan, the roast and the vegetables. The stove roared softly; and onthe flat pipe stood earthen and iron pots and pans simmering and frettingand sending up clouds of steam to the rafters. Amidst it all, motherhurried to and fro in her heavy wooden shoes. Her body still waggled inher wide jacket and blue petticoat. Her face shone with grease andperspiration. She puffed and sighed in the intolerable heat. The bluechequered cloth lay spread on the table; and all around were the plateswith the freshly tinned spoons and forks and little beer-glasses. [8]Outside, the boys sat in the top of the walnut-tree, waiting and peeringfor any one coming. Father had taken off his blue smock and turned up hisshirt-sleeves and now went to see to his birds. That was his great hobbyand his work on Sunday every week. All the walls were hung with cages: inthat big one were two canaries, pairing; in the next, a hen-canarysitting on her eggs; and in a little wire castle lived a linnet and acock-canary and three speckled youngsters. The finches were in a long rowof darkened cages and moulting-boxes. When he put out his hands, thewhole pack started singing and whistling; they sprang and flutteredagainst the bars and pecked at his fingers. He took the cages down one byone, put them on the table and whistled and talked to his birds, cleanedthe trays and filled the troughs with fresh water and seed. Thecanary-bird got a lump of white sugar and the linnet half an egg, becauseof her young ones. Then he stood and watched them washing their beaks andwings and splashing in the water, pecking at their troughs now full ofseed and at their sugar and cheerfully hopping on and off their perches. Then, when they were all hung up again in their places on the wall, theyall started whistling together till the kitchen rang with it. The babyscreamed in its cradle. Trientje cried and mother stamped across thefloor in her heavy wooden shoes. 

[8] The West-Flemings brew a beer so extremely strong that it is served in quite small glasses, not more than half the size of an ordinary tumbler. 

"Hi, mates, I see something!" Fonske called from the walnut-tree. 

The boys stretched their necks and so did father: it was jogging along inthe distance, coming nearer and nearer. 

"Uncle Petrus and Aunt Stanse in the dog-cart!"

They slithered out of the tree like cats and ran down the road as fast asthey could. The others now plainly heard the wheels rattling and saw thegreat dogs tugging and leaping along as if possessed. High up in the carsat uncle, with his tall hat on his round head, bolt upright in hisglossy black-broadcloth coat; and beside him broad-bodied Aunt Stanse, with coloured ribbons fluttering round her cap and a glitter of beadsupon her breast. In between them sat Cousin Isidoor, half-hidden, wavinghis handkerchief. They came nearer still, jolting up and down through thestreaks of shade and sunlight between the trees. Uncle Petrus flourishedhis hand, pushed his hat back and urged the dogs on; aunt sat with herface aflame and the drops of sweat on her chubby cheeks, laughing, withher hands on her hips, because of the shaking of her fat stomach. Thedogs barked and leapt right and left at the boys. Petrus jumped nimblyout of the cart, ran along the shafts and led the team with a stylishturn out of the road, through the gate, into the little garden, where itpulled up in front of the door. The dogs stood still, panting and lollingout their tongues. Mother was there too and cried, "Welcome, " and tookDoorke under the armpits and lifted him out of the cart. Aunt began byhanding out baskets, parcels and bundles. Then, sticking out her fatlegs, in their white stockings, she climbed out of the cart and lookedround at the youngsters, who already stood hankering to know what was inthe basket. 

"Well, bless me, Frazie, I needn't ask you how it goes with the chickens!There's a whole band of them and all sound and well: just look at them!Oh, you fatty!" And she pinched Bertje's red cheeks. "And you too, Frazie. "

"Look at the state I'm in!" said mother, sticking her hands under theapron stretched tight across her fat stomach and looking down at her barelegs. "Such a heap to do, no time to dress yet. "

"You're all right as you are, Frazie; you've no need to hide your legsnor t'other either: you've a handsome allowance of both, " said UnclePetrus, chaffingly. "I'd like a drop of water for the dogs, though. "

Father sent the bucket toppling down the well and turned the handle tillit rose filled. The dogs stuck their heads into the bucket and lapped andgulped greedily. Cousin stood staring bashfully amid all thosepeasant-lads and all that jollity, while Bertje, Fonske and the otherstoo did not come near, but stood looking at the little gentleman with hisfine clothes and his thin, peaky face; they trotted and turned, whisperedto one another, went outside and came back again, laughed and saidnothing. 

"But the first-communicant! Where's Horieneke?" asked Stanse, suddenly. 

From the little green arbour, in between the trees, a golden curly-headcame peeping, followed by a little white body and little Trientje too, holding a great bunch of yellow daffodils in her hand. Stanse stuck outher arms in the air:

"Oh, you little butterfly! Come along here, you're as lovely as anangel!"

And she lifted Horieneke from among the flowers, right up to her beadedbreast, and pressed her thick lips to the child's forehead with aresounding smack. 

"Godmother, godmother, " whimpered Trientje. 

"Yes, you too, my duck!"

And the child forthwith received two fat kisses on its little cheeks. 

The dogs were now unharnessed and father and Petrus had gone for a strollin the orchard. The boys stood crowding against the table, looking ataunt undoing her parcels. In one were sweet biscuits, in anotherbrandy-balls, peppermints, pear-drops and toffy. All this was carefullydivided into little stacks and each child was given his share, with thestrict injunction not to eat any before noon. Fonske hid his in thedrawer, next to the canary-seed, Dolfke his in the cupboard and Bertjeshoved his portion into his pockets. It was not long before three or fourof them were fighting like thieves and robbers, while Stanse and Fraziewent to look at the baby, which lay sleeping quietly in the cradle. 

First one more drop of cherry-gin apiece and then to dinner. The soupstood ready ladled out, steaming in the plates. Horieneke sat demurely inthe middle, next to Doorke, with uncle and aunt on either side and, lowerdown, father and all the children: mother had to keep moving to and fro, waiting on them, snatching a mouthful now and again betweenwhiles. Whenevery one was served and Trientje had stammered out her Our Father aloud, father once more stood up, as the master of the house, and said:

"You are all of you welcome and I wish you a good appetite. "

The spoons began to clatter and the tongues to wag: uncle praised thedelicious leek-soup, so did aunt; and then came endless questions fromevery side about the news of the district and all that had happenedduring the last ten or twelve years, ever since Frazie had married andleft her home. 

The children sat staring with wide-open eyes, now at their plates, now ataunt with her fat cheeks and her diamond cross that hung glittering atthe end of a gold chain on her enormous breast; they counted the ringsthat were spitted on her fingers right up to the knuckles; they gazed ather earrings. .. . As the soup went down, the faces began to shine andmother pulled at her jacket and complained of the dreadful heat. Fatherpushed up the window and opened the back-door. The wind and the scentedair, with pollen from the cherry-trees, now blew across the table andplayed refreshingly in their necks and ears. Mother kept on running aboutand serving: it was hot carrots now and boiled beef. Father took theflowered milk-jug and filled the little tumblers with beer. Slices ofmeat and fat were cut off with the big carving-knife and distributed;each received his plateful of glistening carrots; and the forks wentbravely to work. After that, the great iron pot was set on the table, with the rabbits, which, roasted brown, lay outstretched in theappetizing, simmering gravy that smelt so good; and beside it a dish ofsteaming potatoes. The little tumblers were emptied and filled again; inbetween the loud talking you could hear the crunching of the teeth andthe cracking of the bones; the children sat smeared to their eyes andpicked the food in their plates with their hands. Uncle's eyes began totwinkle and he started making jokes, so much so that aunt had everymoment to stop eating for laughing; then her broad head would fallbackwards and her cheeks, which bloomed like ripe peaches, creased up anddisplayed two rows of gleaming ivory teeth. It all turned to a noisygiggling; and the general merriment could be heard far away in the otherhouses. 

Uncle Petrus enjoyed teasing his sister and made her cry out each time hedeclared that, for all her waiting at table and running about, she hadeaten more than he and Brother Ivo put together and that it was no wondershe had grown such a body and bred such fine youngsters. The mighty dinwoke the baby and started it crying loudly in its cradle. Fonske took itout and put it in mother's lap. It was as fresh and pink as a rose-bud;it kicked its little legs about and shoved its fists into its eyes. 

"Yes, darling, you're hungry too, I expect. "

And she unbuttoned her jacket and from behind her shift produced hergreat right breast. The baby stuck its hands into that wealth ofwhiteness, seized the proffered nipple in its mouth and started greedilysucking. After the first eager gulps it gradually quieted, closed itseyes and lay softly drinking, rocked on mother's heaving lap. Isidoorkekept looking at this as at something very strange that alarmed him. Horieneke, noticing it, held up a rabbit-leg to him and told him of thosepretty white rabbits which she had seen slaughtered yesterday. The otheryoungsters had now eaten their fill and began to feel terribly bored attable. Bertje gave Fonske a kick on the shin and they went outsidetogether, whispering like boys with some roguery in view. Wartje, Dolfkeand the others followed them outside. When it was all well planned, theybeckoned behind the door to Doorke; and, when the little man came out atlast:

"Is it true, Doorke? Do you dare go among the dogs?"

And they led him on gently by his velvet jacket, behind the house to thebake-house, where the dogs lay blinking in the shade, with their headsstretched on their paws. 

Doorke nodded; and, to show how well-behaved they were, he went close upto them and stroked their backs. 

"And is it also true, " asked Bertje, with mischievous innocence, "thatyou know how to harness them?"

Doorke looked surprised and again nodded yes. 

"Let's see if you dare!"

"Hoo, hoo, Baron!" said Doorke. 

And he took the dog by the collar, put the girths on him and fastened thetraces while Fonske held up the cart. 

"And that other one too?"

Doorke did the same with the other dog and with the third; and they werenow all three harnessed. Bertje took the cart by the shafts and drew itvery softly, without a sound, under the windows and through the littlegate into the road. The other boys bit their fingers, held their breathsand followed on tip-toe. Then they all crept into the cart; and, whenthey were comfortably seated, Bertje took the reins and:

"Gee up!"

Wartje struck the dogs with the handle of the whip and they leapt forwardlustily and the cart rolled along through the clouds of dust rising fromthe sandy road. 

Horieneke had come up too and watched this silent sport; and she nowstood alone with Doorke, looking along the trees, where the cart wasdisappearing towards the edge of the wood. When there was nothing more tosee, they both went indoors. 

Uncle and aunt and father were now talking quietly and earnestly, overthree cups of coffee. Mother still sat with the baby on her lap, where ithad fallen asleep while sucking. Aunt was constantly wiping theglistening perspiration from her forehead; and she unbuttoned her silkdress because she had eaten too much and her heart was beginning toswell. 

"Shouldn't we be better out of doors?" she asked. 

Mother tucked in her breast, buttoned her jacket and laid the childcarefully in the cradle, near Trientje, who sat sleeping in her littlebaby-chair. They left everything as it was: table and plates and pots andglasses. Father and uncle filled their pipes and went outside under theelder-tree, in the shade. The wives tucked their clothes between theirlegs and lay down in the grass. Aunt had carefully rolled up her silkskirt and was in her white petticoat. 

They now went on talking: an incessant tattle about getting children andbringing them up, about housekeeping and about land and sand and parishnews, until, overcome by the heat and the weight of their bodies, theylet their heads fall and closed their eyes and seemed to sleep. Uncle andfather stood looking at them a little longer and then, in their whiteshirt-sleeves, with their thumbs in their tight trouser-bands, went upthe narrow little path, in the blazing sun, to look at the wheat and theflax, which were already high. 

Horieneke and Doorke were now left looking at each other. Horieneke beganto tire of this; and she took the boy by the hand and led him into thehouse and up to her room. There she showed him her holy pictures on thewall and her little statues; they sat down side by side on the bed; andHorieneke told him the whole of her life and the doings of the last fewdays, all that she had longed for and to-day's happiness. The boylistened to her gladly; he looked at her with his big, brown eyes and satstill closer to her on the bed. He had now to see her pretty clothes; andthey went together to the best bedroom where the veil lay and the wreathand her prayer-book and earrings. She must next really show him what shehad looked like that morning in church; and he helped her put on theveil, placed the wreath on her curls and then took a few steps backwardsto see. He thought her very pretty; and they smiled happily. Theneverything was taken off again; and they went hand in hand, like abrother and sister who had not seen each other for some time, to walk inthe little flower-garden. Here they looked at every leaf and named everyflower that was about to open. When everything had been thoroughlyinspected, they sat and chatted in the box arbour, very seriously, likegrown-up people. Then they also became tired and Horieneke put her armover Doorke's shoulder, allowed her golden curls to play in his eyes andin this way they walked out, down the road, towards the wood. Here theywere all alone with the birds twittering in the trees and the cricketschirping in the grass beside the ditch. 

Everywhere, as far as they could see, was corn and green fields andsunshine and stillness. They strolled down the long, cheerful road. Doorke held his arm round Horieneke's tight-laced little waist andlistened to all the new things which his cousin described so prettily;and she too felt a great delight in having this boy, with his brown eyesand his lean shoulder-blades, beside her, listening to her and looking ather and understanding her ever so much better than her rough littlebrothers did. She would have liked to walk on all her life like this, inthat golden sunshine, telling him how she had read that beautiful prayerin church this morning . .. And about the priest's sermon . .. And thosepretty angels with their gold wings, who had walked up and down so calmlyand placidly; about her dread during the communion-mass and her fear andsorrow because Our Lord had not spoken in her little heart. And so, talking and listening, they came to the wood. It looked so pleasant underthose pollard alders in the shade and farther on in the dark, among thespruces, where the light filtered through in meagre rays, after that longwalk in the blinding sun. 

"Let's go in!" said Doorke and was on the point of going down the littlepath that ran beside the ditch, in among the trees. 

"We mustn't!" said Horieneke; and she clutched him by the arm. 

Her face grew very serious and she wrinkled her forehead:

"Look there!"

And she pointed through a gap between the trees down to the valley where, above the tall trunks, they could see the whole expanse of a bighomestead, with the long thatched roofs of stable and barn and the tilesand slates of the house and turrets. She put her mouth to his ear andwhispered:

"That's where the rent-farmer lives . .. And he's a bad, bad man. He doeswicked things to the little girls who go into the wood; and mother saysthat then they fall ill and die and then they go to Hell!"

Doorke did not understand very well, but he saw from Horieneke'swide-open eyes that it was serious. They sat down together on the edge ofthe ditch, with their legs in the grass, played with the daisies andlistened to the thrushes gurgling deep down in the wood. They sat therefor a long time. The sun sank to the top of the oak; the sky was fleckedwith white clouds which shot through the heavens in long divergingshafts, like a huge peacock's tail upon an orange field. 

The children mused:

"I should like to fall down dead, here and now, " said Horieneke. 

Doorke looked up in surprise:

"Why, Horieneke?"

"Then I should be in Heaven at once. "

They again sat thinking a little:

"Playing with the angels!. .. Have you ever seen angels, Doorke?"

"Yes, in the procession, Horieneke. "

"Ah, but I mean live ones! I saw some last night, live ones; and theywere in white, Doorke, with long trains and golden hair and diamondcrowns, and they were singing in a beautiful garden!. .. "

With raised eyebrows and earnest gestures of her little forefinger, shetold him all her dream of the angels and the swings and the singing andthe music . .. And of father with his sickle. 

Doorke hung upon her words. 

The thrush started anew and they sat listening. 

"What will you do when you grow up, Doorke?"

And she put her arm round the boy's neck again and looked fondly into hiseyes:

"Will you get married, Doorke?"

Doorke shook his head. 

"Not even to me?"

And she looked at him with such a roguish smile that the boy feltashamed. Then, to comfort him, she said:

"Nor I either, Doorke. Do you know what I'm going to do?"

"No, Horieneke. "

"Listen, Doorke, I'll tell you all about it, but promise on your soul notto tell anybody: Bertje, Fonske and all the rest mustn't know. "

Doorke nodded. 

"Father wanted me to go into service down there, with all those wickedpeople. Then I cried for days and days and prayed to Our Lord; and mothertold father that I was dying; and then she said that I might . .. Try andguess, Doorke!"

Doorke made no attempt to guess. Then she drew him closer to her andwhispered:

"Mother said I might stay at home and help her . .. And afterwards, when Iam grown up . .. I shall become a nun, Doorke, in a convent; but firstmother must get another baby, a new Horieneke. .. . And you?"

The boy didn't know. 

"And you, Doorke, must learn to be a priest; then you and I will both goto Heaven. "

Behind them, on the road, came a noise and a rush and an outcry so greatthat the children started up in fright. Look! It was Bertje and all thelittle brothers in the dog-cart, which was coming back home through thesand. When they saw cousin and Horieneke, they raised a mighty shout ofjoy and stopped. Bertje stood erect and issued his commands: all the boysmust get out; he would remain sitting on the front seat, with Horienekeand Doorke side by side behind him, between two leafy branches, like abride and bridegroom! Fonske cut two branches from an alder-tree andfastened them to either side of the cart. Then they set out, amid theshouting and cheering of the boys running in front and behind:

"Ready?"

"Ye-e-es!"

The dogs gave an angry jerk forward and the cart went terribly fast andDoorke clutched Horieneke with one hand and with the other warded off thehanging willow-twigs that lashed their faces. 

The sun had gone down and a red light was glowing in the west, high up inthe tender blue. The air had turned cooler and a cold, clammy damp wasfalling over the fields, which now lay steaming deadly still in therising mist that already shrouded the trees in blue and darkened thedistances. 

At the turn of the road, the children stepped out of the cart and put itaway carefully behind the bake-house, tied up the panting dogs andsauntered into the house. 

"Father, we've been out with cousin, " said Bertje. 

They had to take their coffee and their cakebread-and-butter in a hurry:it was time to put the dogs in, said uncle. 

Doorke said they were put in. 

Frazie helped her sister on with her things:

"You'll find the looking-glass hanging in the window, Stanse. I must goand put on another skirt too and come a bit of the way with you. "

The boys were to stay at home; they got the rest of the sweets and wereordered to bed at once. Horieneke was told to take off her best clothes;it was evening and the goats had still to be fed. She went to her littleroom reluctantly and could have cried because it was all over now andbecause it was so melancholy in the dark. She felt ashamed when she camedown again and glanced askance at Doorke, who would think her so plain inher week-day clothes. The boy looked at her and said nothing; then hejumped into the cart and drove off slowly. Mother with Stanse and fatherwith uncle came walking behind. 

It was still light; the evening was falling slowly, slowly, as though thedaylight would never end. In the west the sky was hung with white andgold tapestry against an orange background. On the other side, the moon, very wan still, floated in the pale-blue all around it. Beside the blueytrees long purple stripes of shadow now lay, with fallen clusters ofbranches, on the plain. You could hardly tell if day or night were athand. 

Uncle and aunt were extremely pleased with their visit; uncle lookedcontentedly into the distance and boasted that he had never seen such anevening nor such fine weather so early in the year, while Frazie at eachstep flung her arms into the air and stopped to say things to Stanse, whose good-natured laugh rang out over the plain and along the road. Infront of them, Doorke, like a little black shadow, danced up and down inhis cart to the jolting of the wheels as he jogged quietly along. Thecrickets chirped in the ditch; and from high up in the trees came thedying twitter of birds about to go to sleep. 

Father wanted to drink a parting glass of beer in the Swan; Doorke coulddrive along slowly. 

"Just five minutes then, " said Petrus. 

There were many people in the inn and much loud merriment. The newarrivals were soon sitting among the others, staying on and listening toall the jolly songs; and, when this had gone on for some time, theyforgot the hour and the parting. Aunt Stanse held her stomach withlaughing; she was not behindhand when the glasses had to be emptied orwhen her turn came to sing a song. Amid the turmoil, the rent-farmer cameup to Frazie, took her impudently by the arm, laughingly wished her_proficiat_ with her pretty daughter and, after slyly looking about himfor confirmation, said, half in earnest:

"We're planting potatoes to-morrow at the Rent Farm, we shall want lotsof hands; missie may as well come too. "

And with that he went back to his game of cards. 

This time, the leave-taking was genuine. Petrus got up; and it wasgood-bye till next year, when Doorke would make his first communion. 

The cart was waiting outside the door; they stepped in, uncle took thereins. 

"A safe ride home!"

"Thanks for the pleasant visit! And to our next merry meeting!"

"God speed!. .. Good-night!"

"Gee up!"

The dogs sprang forward, the cart rumbled along and soon the whole thinghad become a shapeless black patch among the black trees. In the stillnight they could just hear the wheels rattling over the cobbles; and thenIvo and Frazie went home again. 

A breeze came playing through the garden, sighing now and again with asound as soft as silk; the moon shone upon the dark trees and its lightplayed like golden snow-flakes dancing and fluttering down upon thegleaming crests of the green bushes and the milk-white plain. The air washeavy and stifling, full of warm damp; and strong-scented gusts of fresh, rain-laden perfumes blew across the road. 

They stepped hurriedly on the legs of their long shadows and did notspeak. There came a new rustling in the trees and a few big, cool dropsof rain pattered on the sand, one here, one there and gradually quicker. 

Ivo and Frazie hastened their pace; but, when the great drops began tofall on them thick as hail and around them in the sand, till the rainstreaked through the air and rattled tremendously over their heads, mother held her body with both hands to prevent its shaking, Ivo tied hisred handkerchief over his silk cap and they started running. 

"It was main hot for the time of year. "

"And the flowers smelt too strong and the thrush sang so loud. "

It went on raining: a wholesome, cleansing downpour, a slow descent inslanting lines that glittered in the moonlight, bringing health to theearth. The air was fragrant with the wet grass and the white flowers: itwas like a rich garden. At home, everything was put away, the tablecleared and wiped; the lamp was alight and all the doors open. The boyswere in bed. Horieneke had read evening prayers to them and then hurriedto her little room, to be alone; and there she had lain thinking of allthat had happened during that long day: her jaws ached from the constantsmiling; and she felt dead-tired and sad. 

Father took off his wet blouse and mother stirred up the fire: they wouldhave one more cup of coffee, with a drop of something, and then go tobed. Ivo lit his pipe and stretched out his legs to dry beside the stove. 

They drank their coffee and listened to the steady breathing of the boysand the dripping of the gutters on the cobbles outside. Father made aremark or two about uncle and aunt and about their village, but got onlyhalf-answers from his wife. Then, all of a sudden, he asked:

"What did the farmer come and say to you?"

Frazie sighed:

"They're planting potatoes to-morrow and we were to go and work; andHorieneke was to come too. "

"Ay. "

"But she'll stay here!"

"What do you mean, stay here?"

"Yes, she's got her work to do at home. "

"All right; but if she has to go?"

"Don't care. "

And mother stood with her arms akimbo, looking at her husband, waitingfor his answer. 

"And if he turns us out and leaves us without work!"

"And suppose our child comes home with a present . .. From that beast of afarmer!"

Ivo knocked out his pipe:

"Pooh, that could happen to her anywhere; and, after all, she won't betied to her mother's apron-strings all her life long!. .. When you live ina man's house and eat his bread, you've got to work for it and do hiswill: the master is the master. Come, let's go to bed; we've a lot to dotomorrow. "

Suppressed sobs came from the little bedroom. Mother looked in. Horienekelay with her hands before her eyes, crying convulsively. 

"Well, what's the matter?"

The child pressed her head to the wall and wept harder than ever. 

"Come along, wife, damn it! It's time that all this foolery was over, orshe'll lose her senses altogether. "

Mother grew impatient, bit her teeth:

"Oh, you blessed cry-baby!"

And angrily she thumped the child on the hip with her clenched fist andleft her lying there. 

"A nice thing, getting children: one'd rather bring up puppies any day!"

She turned out the light and it was now dark and still; outside, the thinrain dripped and the white blossoms blew from the trees and the whole airsmelt wonderfully good. In the distance, the nightingale hidden in thewood jugged and gurgled without stopping; and it was like the pealing ofa church-organ all night long. 

 * * * * *

The weather had broken up and the day dawned with a melancholy drizzleand a cold wind. The sky remained grey, discharging misty raindrops whichsoaked into everything and hung trembling like strung pearls on theleaves of the beech-hedge and on the grass and on the cornstalks in thefields. It was suddenly winter again. On the hilly field the people stoodblack, wrapped up, with their caps drawn over their ears and their redhandkerchiefs round their necks. The hoes went up in the air one afterthe other and struck the moist earth, which opened into straight furrowsfrom one end to the other of the field. Here wives walked barefoot, bent, with baskets on their arm from which they kept taking potatoes and layingthem, at a foot's distance, in the open trench. In a corner of the fieldstood the farmer, his big body leaning on a stick; and his dark eyeswatched his labourers. 

There, in the midst of them, was Horieneke, bent also like the others, inher coarse workaday clothes, with a basket of seed-potatoes on her arm;and her red-gold curls now hung, like long corkscrews, wet against herface; and every now and then she would draw herself up, tossing her headback to keep them out of her eyes. 

 * * * * *

IN THE SQUALL

 * * * * *

VI

IN THE SQUALL

At noon, under the blazing sun, all three started for the wood, afterblackberries. 

Trientje was in her cotton pinafore, with a straw hat on her head and awicker basket on her arm. Lowietje stood in his worn breeches and historn shirt; in his pocket he had a new climbing-cord. Each draggedPoentje by one hand, Poentje who still went about in his little shirtand, with his wide-straddling little bare legs, trotted on betweenbrother and sister. 

They went along narrow, winding foot-paths, between the cornfields, highas a man, through the flax-meadows and the yellow blinkingmustard-flower. The sun bit into Lowietje's bare head and sent the sweattrickling down his cheeks. 

They went always on, with their eyes fixed upon that thick crowd of bluetrees full of blithe green and of dark depths behind the farthermosttrunks. 

Poentje became tired and let himself be dragged along by his hands. Whenhe began to cry, they sat down in the ditch beside the corn to rest. Trientje opened her basket and they ate up all their bread-and-butter. Near them, in the grass, ants crept in and out of a little hole. Lowietjepoked with a stick and the whole nest came crawling out. The children satlooking to see all those beasties swarm about and run away with theireggs. 

All three stood up and went past the old mill, then through the meadowand so, at last, they came to the wood and into the cool shade. On thebanks of the deep, hollowed path, it all stood thick as hail and blackwith the brambleberries. Lowietje picked, never stopped picking, and putthem one by one in his mouth; and his nose and cheeks were smeared withred, like blood. Trientje steadily picked her whole basket full andPoentje sat playing on the way-side grass with a bunch of cornflowers. 

In the wood, everything was still: the trees stood firmly in the blaze ofthe sun and the young leaves hung gleaming, without stirring. A bird satvery deep down whistling and its song rang out as in a great church. Turtle-doves cooed far away. Round the children's ears hummed big fatbees, buzzing from flower to flower. When the bank was stripped, theywent deeper into the wood, Lowietje going ahead to show the way. Theycrept through the trees where it twilighted and where the sun played soprettily with little golden arrows in the leafage; from there they cameinto the high pine-wood. Look, look! There were other boys . .. And theyknew where birds lived!

"Listen, Trientje, " said Lowietje. "You stay here with Poentje: I'll comeback at once and bring your pinafore full of birds' eggs . .. And youngones. "

He fetched out his climbing-cord and, in a flash, all the boys were gone, behind the trees. Trientje heard them shout and yell and, a little later, she saw her little brother sitting high up on the slippery trunk of abeech. She put her hands to her mouth and screamed:

"Lo--wie!. .. "

It echoed three or four times over the low shoots and against the talltrees, but Lowietje did not hear. 

A man now came striding down the path; he carried a gun on his shoulder. The boys had only just seen him and, on every side, they came scramblingout of the tree-tops, slid down the trunks and darted into the underwood. Breathless, bewildered and scared to death, Lowietje came to his sisterand, with his two hands, held the rents of his trousers together:

"There were eight eggs there, Trientje, but the keeper came and, in thesliding, my trousers. .. . "

And he let a strip fall. They were torn from end to end, from top tobottom, in each leg. 

"Mother will be angry, " said Trientje, very earnestly. 

She took some pins from her frock and fastened the tears, so that theskin did not show. 

Suddenly fell a rumbling thunder-clap that droned through all the woodand died away in a long chain of rough sounds. The children looked at oneanother and then at the trees and the sky. All stood black now, the sunwas gone and a warm wind came working through the boughs, by gusts. Itgrew dark as night and at times most terribly silent. 

And now--they all crossed themselves--a ball of fire flew through the skyand it cracked and broke and it tore all that was in the wood. The windcame up, the branches rocked and writhed and the leaves fluttered andtugged and heavy drops beat into the sand. 

"Quick, quick!" said Trientje. "It's going to lighten!"

Lowietje said nothing and Poentje cried. Each took the child by one handand they ran as fast as they could to get from under the trees. 

"Ooh! Ooh!"

They dashed their hands before their eyes and stood still: a golden snaketwisted round a tree and all the wood was bright with fire and there camea droning and a rumbling and a banging as of stones together and ahundred thousand branches burst asunder. Shivering, not daring to lookup, they crossed themselves again and all three crept under the branches, deep down in a ditch. Trientje tied her pinafore over the little one'sface and they sat there huddled together, shuddering and peeping throughtheir fingers and saying loud Our Fathers. 

"You must not look, Lowietje: the lightning would strike you blind. "

The trees wrung their heavy boughs and everything squeaked and rustledterribly. The water rained and poured from the leafy vault on Trientje'sstraw hat, on Lowietje's bare head and right through his little tornshirt. And clap and clap of thunder fell; the sky opened and belched firelike a hot oven. The children sat nestling into each other'sarms--Poentje down under the other two--and only when it had kept stillfor long did they all, trembling and terrified, dare to put out theirheads. 

"I wish we were home now!" sighed Lowietje. 

Once more the sky was all on fire and rumbling and breaking and cracklingtill the earth quaked and shook. 

"O God, O God, help us get out of the wood and home to mother!" whinedTrientje. 

When they opened their eyes again, they saw below them, in the bottom, ahuge beech with a bough struck off and the white splinters bare, withleaves awkwardly twisted right round: it stood there like a fellow withone arm off. 

The rain now fell steadily in straight stripes; the noise grew fainterand the sky broke open. 

Soaked through with the wet, the children came creeping out of the ditchand now, holding their breaths, stood looking at that tree which was soawesomely cleft and at that crippled bough which hung swinging overspace. The thunder still rumbled, but it was very far away, like heavywaggons rattling over hard stones. Lowietje caught his little brother upon his back and they made straight for the opening of the drove, wherethey saw a clear sky. They must get out of the wood, away from thosetrees where such fearful things happened and where it cracked so andwhere it was so dark. 

Outside, the heaven hung full of gold-edged clouds and the sun drove itsbright darts through the sky. The rain fell in lovely gleaming drops andall looked so new, so fresh and so strangely glad as after a fit ofweeping, when the glistening tears hang in laughing eyes. 'Twas all sopeaceful here and 'twas far behind them that the trees were twisted andbent. Here and there flew birds; and the cuckoo sat calling in acornfield. Lowietje's shirt was glued to his skin; his trousers hungheavily from his limbs and his hair fell in dripping tresses, stickingalong his cheeks. The white spots on Trientje's pinafore were run throughwith the black; and wet cornstalks whipped her little thin skirt. Poentjesplashed with his naked little feet in the puddles and asked for mother. 

"We're almost home, child, " said Trientje, to soothe him. 

They went through the wet grass and fragrant cornfields along theslippery footpaths to a big road. 

Look, there, behind the turning, came mother: she had a sack-cloth overher head and two umbrellas under her arm; she looked angry and ugly. 

"We shall get a beating, " sighed Lowietje. 

 * * * * *

A PIPE OR NO PIPE

 * * * * *

VII

A PIPE OR NO PIPE

He dropped his wheel-barrow, strode from between the shafts and went andlooked into the great window of the tobacco-shop. His eyes were all full, as far as they could carry: an abundance and a splendour to dream about. He came a step nearer and rested his two elbows on the stone window-sill, to see more comfortably. 

Two stacks of motley cigar-boxes stood on either side and ran together atthe top into a rounded arch, from which hung long, long pipes, cinnamon-wood pipes, as thick as your arm, with green strings to them andhuge, big bowls, artfully carved into the heads of the King, of hideousniggers, or of pretty girls with beads for eyes. 

On thick, transparent glass slips lay whole files of meerschaum pipes, furnished with clear curved-amber mouthpieces: fishes' heads, lobster-claws holding an eggshell, horses' heads, cows' hoofs; richcigar-holders of meerschaum, all over silver stars and gold bands. Heapsand heaps and lots and lots of every kind, as far as he could see; andall this was multiplied in two enormous mirrors, in which, yonder, farback among all this smoking-gear, he saw his own face staring at him outof his great, astonished eyes. 

He sighed. It was all so beautiful, so rich! And now if mother had onlygot work!

He went over it once more. Down below, in little plush-lined trays, laythe small pipes, the boys' stuff. They lay scattered higgledy-piggledy, whole handfuls of them, crooked and straight, brown and black. His eyesthieved round voluptuously in those trays and they read with eagercuriosity the neatly-written figures which informed the world how mucheach pipe cost. 

Here, they were crooked, comical little things of black cocus-wood;there, they were motley, speckled round bowls, like birds' eggs, withwhite stems; but they cost too much. And yet they were so charitablybeautiful! Now his eyes remained hankering after a splendid varnishedbowl. It was almost tucked out of sight, but it glittered so temptinglyand had a lovely brown ring at the edge, shading downwards to a palegold-yellow: there was a little cup for the oil to sweat into and a fatcinnamon stem, with a horn mouthpiece. He examined it on every side andwould have liked to turn it over with his eyes. Inside the bowl stood, inblack figures:

"1 _fr_. 50. "

"Mother!. .. "

That was the one he wanted, that was his. She had promised him a pipe ifshe got work to-day. If only she had brought work with her!

After one last look and one more . .. He went on. 

He caught up his barrow and pushed it, over the wide road, straight tothe station. 

There he had to wait. 

He loitered round the dreary, deserted yard. The noon sun bit the nakedstones; and everything, hiding and shrinking from that glowing sun-fire, seemed dead. The drivers sat slumbering on the boxes of their cabs; thehorses stood on three legs, their heads down, crookedwise between theshafts, and now and then they gave a short stamp, to keep off the flies, which were terribly active. A group of loafers lay sleeping on theirstomachs in the shade. A slow-moving vehicle drove past and disappearedround the corner. A dog came stepping up lazily and went and lay underthe sunflowers near the signal-box, blinking his eyes. 

There was nothing more that moved. 

At last the train came gliding in very gently, without noise, and it senta gulp or two of white smoke into the quivering blue sky. 

Now the boy stood stretching his neck through the railings, on thelook-out for his mother, whom he already saw in his thoughts, comingbent, with a heavily-laden bag of weaving-stuff; and the pipe was in hispocket . .. Or else nothing, nothing at all!

'Twas a fat gentleman that got out first; then a tall, thin one; then awoman; then another woman; always others; and now, now it was mother. Shestuck out her thin leg, groping from the high foot-board to find theground, and . .. She had an empty blue-and-white canvas bag on hershoulder. His lower lip dropped sadly and he turned slowly to his barrow:

"No work yet. God better it!"

The mother threw her bag on the wheel-barrow and they went on, withoutspeaking. 

Straight opposite the tobacco-shop, the boy gave a sidelong glance at thegreat window, with all those rich things displayed behind it, and hewhistled a little tune. 

They had still far, very far to go, before they two were at home, intheir village. And the sun was burning. 

 * * * * *

ON SUNDAYS

 * * * * *

VIII

ON SUNDAYS

In his Sunday best! A red-and-yellow flowered scarf was tied round hissun-burnt neck and the two ends blew over his shoulders; a smallbrown-felt hat with a curly brim was drawn down upon his head and, fromunder it, came here and there a wisp of flaxen hair. He wore a small, open jacket, with a short waistcoat, from under which a clean blue shirtbulged out; and his long, much too long trousers fell in wide folds overhis big cossack shoes. [9] Under his arm he carried a bundle knotted intoa red handkerchief, while with the other hand he twirled a switch. 

[9] Hob-nailed shoes fastened with straps. 

He was a growing youngster, a well-set-up cowherd, with a brown, freckledface, small, pale-grey eyes, under milk-white eyebrows, and bony kneesand elbows: a sturdy fellow in the making. 

'Twas heavenly, grand Sunday weather: it shone with light and life and itwas all green, pale, splendid green, against a clear blue sky in themiddle of the afternoon. 

He stepped on bravely, along the wide drove of elms, twisting his switch, and looked into the free sky with his young, grey-blue eyes. Hethought . .. Of what? Of nothing! Truly, of nothing: what does a cowherdthink of? Wait a bit, though; he was thinking: 'twas Sunday! It wasSunday once more, the glad Sunday! And there were so few Sundays in thoselong, long weeks. And he was going home for a few hours: yes, home; andfrom there to Stafke's and to Stafke's pigeons. 

He was hard-worked at the farm: twenty-nine cow-beasts, which were alwayshungry and always wanted fattening; furthermore, a whole herd of calvesand hogs: 'twas a drudging without end or bottom, from early morning tolate at night, until his limbs hung lame. 

The farmer was good but strict and could not abide sluggards; he lookedfor work, hard work; and this the lad was glad to give, but only whilelooking forward to the everlasting Sunday, in which lay all his happinessand cheer. 

He quickened his steps; and the elms pushed by, one by one, and at last, ahead, very far down that dark hedge of stems and leafage, came a tinyopening where the trees seemed to touch one another. 

Look! There, beside the little village church, stood Farmer Willems'homestead, with its little slate turret and the great poplars and, besideit, close together and quite hidden in the green, two little cottages. 'Twas there that he was brought up and had grown up; there, in one ofthose cottages. In the other lived Stafke's father and mother. Thechildren had led the half-wild life of the country there: two little boystogether. They had clambered up those mighty trees, weltered in the sandof the drove and coursed like foals in the meadow. The farm was a freedomain to them; they were at home in it; they went daily to the littledoor of the wash-house to fetch their slice of rye-bread-and-butter and, in the morning, an apple or a pear. They had lain and rolled in thehay-loft, like fish in the water; but all that had passed so quickly, sovery quickly. The parish-priest came; and, for six months, six longmonths, they had had to go to school and church. Then, on a certainMonday morning, father said:

"Lad, you're coming along to the farm to-day, to bind corn. "

Play was over, the free play of the country! They were pressed intolabour, were saddled with the labourer's heavy burden. Since then, it hadbeen an endless roving after work, from one farm to another, with hisbundle under his arm. 

Stafke had remained serving at Willems', with father, and he, on Sundayafternoons, had not so far to go, under the burning sun, in order to gethome. 

The way was long for an unthinking lad; and they seemed endless, thosenever-changing rows of tree-trunks, those uncounted yellow, blinkingcornfields . .. And never a creature on the road. It was something verymuch out of the way when a pigeon flew through the azure sky; the ladstood still and, turning round, followed the great ring which it madeuntil it dropped far away, yonder among the houses of the village. Thenhe went on, pondering, as he went, that there was nothing, absolutelynothing lovelier than a milk-white pigeon in a pale-blue sky; and hewhispered:

"Perhaps it's Stafke's pigeon. "

On reaching home, he laid down his bundle; his baby sister came runningup to him, with her little arms wide open, and held him by his legs; andhe lifted her twice, three times above his head. He handed mother hisearnings; and then, out of the door, to Stafke's!

"Roz'lie, is he in?"

"Oh, yes, he's up in the loft, with the pigeons. "

He climbed up the ladder, in three steps and as carefully as he could, tothe dovecote. Behind a swarm of half-stretched and loose-hanging cloutsand canvas things, a lad sat on an overturned tub, his fair-haired curlyhead in his hands, his elbows on his knees, peering through a sort oflattice-work. Jaak sat down at the other side, on a bundle of maize, injust the same attitude, and looked too. .. . 

There were white, snow-white, mottled, blue, slate-blue, russet, speckled, grey, black-flecked, striped and spotted pigeons, doves, pouters--some cocks, the rest hens--a motley crowd all mixed up together. There were some that sat murmuring one to the other, softly--oh, sosoftly--and nodding their heads for sheer kindliness. Others cooedloudly, angrily or indifferently and tripped round one another. Otherssat huddled, meditating, lonely and forlorn, blinking their bright littleglittering eyes. 

Through the holes, from the resting-board, new ones came walking in withshy feet and sought a little place for themselves; others passed outthrough the narrow opening and, flapping their wings, rose into the sky. 'Twas a humming and muttering without end, a murmuring and whisperingloud and soft and a restless stir and movement: a little world full ofneatly-dressed damsels, who were all so lightly, so prettily decked outand who knew how to manage their trains and their fine clothes sodemurely and so comically. They carefully combed and cleaned their blackvelvet ruffs, smoothed their sharp-striped feathers one by one, fondledand rubbed their downy breasts till they shone like new-blown roses. .. . 

And Jaak and Stafke sat watching this, sat watching this, like two steelstatues, sweating in that warm loft. They did not stir nor speak a singleword. 

And that lasted and went on. .. . 

It grew dusk. From every side the pigeons came flying in, whole troops ofthem, and sought their well-known roosts. They stood two and two, closelycrowded together on the perches or huddled in the holes. They drew theirheads into their feathered throats and slept. The rumour diminished tojust a soft mumbling; and then nothing more. The pigeon that sat overthere, squatting low on her eggs, faded from sight in her dark corner;and the whole upper row vanished in the dusk of the rafters. 

The boys still sat on. 

The dovecote became a pale-grey twilight thing, with drab and blackpatches here and there. The soft humming passed into a faint buzz thatdied away quite; and all was silence. 

They both together stood up straight, gave a long-drawn sigh and wentbelow. 

"It's getting dark, " said Jaak, wiping the sweat from his face. "The cowswill be waiting. "

"Yes, " said Stafke. "It gets evening all at once. Well, Jaak, tillSunday. "

And Jaak went away, through the now moonlit drove, with a new bundleunder his arm and thinking of the farm, of his twenty-nine cow-beasts andof Sunday and of Stafke's pigeons. .. . 

 * * * * *

 _Il y a des malheurs qui arrivent d'un pas si lent et si sûr qu'ils paraissent faire partie de la vie journalière. _

MONTALEMBERT. 

AN ACCIDENT

 * * * * *

IX

AN ACCIDENT

He had been half awake several times already, but each time he hadslipped back into an uneasy doze, a restless, wearisome sojourn in astrange, drowsy world, in which he struggled with stupid, sillydream-spectres, all jumbled together in a huddled mass of incoherent, impossible thoughts and actions; a blank world in which all his workadaydoings were forgotten; an after-life of tiring sleep following on thecarouse of yesterday. He lay half-suffocated in the stifling heat of thattiled garret, lay tossing on a straw mattress. And suddenly, with a joltthat jerked him sleeping like a beast of burden. And now why couldn't hetake life as it came, like his mates, who just went through it anyhow, without any calculating, callously and cheerfully, something like amachine which, when the sun comes out and it is daylight, begins to movearms and legs, to twist and turn the whole day long and, when it isevening again and dark, falls down and remains lying dead, for a fewhours, with all the other things?

He drew himself up, thrust his thin legs into his trousers, his arms intoa dirty jacket and let his weary limbs carry him below. His mother hadbuttoned up the linen satchel with his two slices of bread-and-butter andhad ladled out his porridge. He went out followed by a "God guard you, lad!" and the little woman looked after her boy till he had vanished outof the alley. She was so fond of him, he knew it; yes, he knew all aboutthat tender love, which he so often rejected in a moment of churlishimpatience; but still he was sorry afterwards, even though he nevershowed it. That prim, old-fashioned little woman, with her cramped ways, was his mother; his father had been a drunkard and had been killed at hiswork: that was his parentage; it was their fault that he led thispoverty-stricken existence. 

He walked on, without looking up at all the swarming life around him, went step by step over the slippery cobbles, straight to his work. Hiswork: why must he work, always that everlasting toiling, while otherslived and enjoyed their lives without doing anything? He too had oncethought--but it was only a dream--of becoming something; he had feltsomething stirring just there, inside him, and that seed would havesprouted and blossomed if they had only tended it; but they hadruthlessly repelled him, had refused to take him up with them on theheights; and he had remained in the mud, alone, all alone. 

There it rose before him: a mighty edifice in building, with behind it aradiant summer sun that blazed forth high above the framework of the roofin the morning sky and made that giant structure stand black in its ownshadow. 

That was his work. All that mass of bricks he had seen grow into themighty whole; and there it stood now, a huge block, with heavy, massiveoutlines, contained--held upright, it seemed--by a jumble of dirty-whitestakes and posts, crossed and criss-crossed with planks. Out of a dirtyhodge-podge of crazy houses, walls black with smoke, little inner roomswhich for the first time saw the white light of day, with ragged stripsof wall-paper and whitewash among rotten beams and rafters straight andaskew, all of which his stubborn labour had made to fall and disappear, and out of those deep-dug foundations, out of that drudging in the dirtyground, those stout walls had grown stone by stone, had risen high intothe sky--oh, the hard work of it!--and, tapering by degrees, had shot upto form that mighty building. Wall by wall, wrought at and toiled at, held together by pillars running beside narrow pointed windows to thosepeaked gable-steps, running into a forest of masts, of slanting beamsthat had to bear the roof, the whole of that sprawling monster hadgradually acquired a sense and a meaning and become the splendidmasterpiece that now stood there, solidly fixed against the blue sky likea magic crystallized phrase. 

That beginning all over again, day after day, at the same work; all thatbusy stir of men and stones, now high in the air, now deep below; thatincessant climbing up and down those swaying ladders: all this had madesuch a deep impression on him, had implanted itself into him so firmlythat at the first sight of it he felt smitten with impotence, with amechanical discouragement that gripped his whole being and made him workthroughout the day as though urged by an all-ruling deity set there inthe symbolic shape of that giant colossus at which he toiled. It seemedto him that he was an indispensable little part of that great building, asmall moving thing with but a tiny atom of intelligence--sometimes--andfatally dragged along in that whirling circle, under the behest of themasters, who knew their way through every stroke and line of the greatplan, who had all that great work in their heads and on paper and whopossessed the power to bring all that complicated machine into operation. And he just went to work like a dog, set going by the mournful knockingof the stone-chopper, the shrill screech of the toothless iron marble-sawand all the banging and knocking and hewing up yonder at the top ofthings. He took his wooden hod, filled it with bricks and slowly climbedthe ladder. He was once more the dismal noodle of last week, thehypnotized bag-o'-nerves that let himself be swept along in the whirlwindof habit and vexation, dazed by that awful hugeness which he was helpingto complete and driven on by the ever-pursuing pair of eyes of his strictforeman. And his head ached so; and he felt so sick; and his legs bentunder the load. 

On he had to go and on. His head no longer took part in the work; hislegs kept on going up and down the rungs with those bricks, thoseeverlasting bricks: he did not know how many, just hauled them up, without stopping. 

It seemed to him sometimes that the whole mass of walls and scaffolding, labourers and foremen made but a single being: a sort of fearsome deity, something like an unwieldy monster with inhuman, cruel feelings, something which had to be fed with all that workmen's sweat; and all thisfeverish activity seemed to him the whirling along of a crowd ofunfortunates who had stepped into the fatal circle marked out for them, never to leave it again. Everything seemed so unsteady to-day: thosewalls on which he had to walk tottered; and he took such a pleasure inlooking, in looking for a long time down below, yonder where the men andwomen were like ants and the great blocks of freestone became littlebricks. It gave him such a delicious wriggling in the bowels, a ticklingin his blood; and he felt his hair tingling on his head. Was not this theway to obtain release from that hard labour, to get out of thatbrain-racking circle?

Then he held on to a post until he recovered his senses; and he went downagain for more bricks. It came from all that beer. 

Yesterday had been a holiday. The wooden framework of the roof wasfinished; and they had nailed the May-bough to the top, the joyous emblemof difficulties vanquished. It showed up grandly there, with its brightgreen leaves so high in the air. The masters had granted the men a dayoff and given them plenty of beer. All that warm day they had made merry, drinking and singing and loafing about the streets like happy savages. Hetoo had revelled with the rest, had been overcome by the drink and joinedin everything, from the horseplay in the open air to the bestialamusements in those dark holes where the populace seeks its pleasure, that stimulant for the work of the morrow. Then that brutal drunkennesshad come, with the loss of all his senses, till he found himself, dog-tired, sick and feverish, up in his garret under the tiles. 

To-day the work was twice as irksome. That rising warmth which, in themorning, while it is still cool, forebodes the stifling, paralysing heatof the scorching noon-day, tortured his throat and his bowels; hecouldn't go on. 

"Slacker!" was the first word flung at his head. He stood on the highgable-steps and set down his load of bricks. That "Slacker!" played aboutin his head like the smarting pain of a lash. He stood looking aimlesslyinto space, indifferent to all that moved and lived around him. A shudderran through his body. The wall tottered . .. And he was so high up, allalone, seen by nobody: such a small creature in that blue sky, in thatendless space. In a clear vision he saw his own figure in all its leanwretchedness, cut out like a paper silhouette, standing out sharplyagainst the sky, such a miserable little object: two thin legs, likelaths, a little stomach, two little sticks of arms and that small, everyday, vulgar head. Was that he, that tiny atom of this mighty, colossal building, that ant on the back of this behemoth . .. Which hadonly to move to shake him off, ever so low down!

Ah, here's that delicious wriggling in the bowels again! He has lookeddown. Once more. That's capital: something like a feeling of wanting tojump down, such an airy, irresponsible joy, like flying in a dense, bluesky, falling very gently and slowly--oh, what fun!--and then being rid ofall one's troubles!. .. And yet there was a certain fear about it. Hemustn't look any more. Or just this once . .. That was grand! Once morethat awful depth, with all those tiny figures, yawned below him; and itwas the little wall that kept him up there so high, only that littlewall. .. . One movement, the least little yielding, the least bending over:oh, what bliss . .. And how frightful!. .. He became drunk with delight, filled with the pleasure of it; he gasped, his eyes became unseeing; itwas like being wafted along, a gentle flight through the air and . .. Hefell. 

Bumping against a scaffold, clutching with hands and feet; a breakingplank, a ghastly yell . .. And then a body with arms and legs outspread inspace, a thunderbolt . .. A thud as of a bag of earth . .. And there helay, stretched at full length, like a man asleep. That scream ofdistress, that terrible shriek, that farewell cry of one who is goingaway for good had sent something like an electric shock through allaround; work ceased and they scrambled down and stood in a great circlearound that body . .. Looking. And a great silence followed, that silencewhich is so heavy and oppressive after the sudden stop of so muchactivity. People came rushing up, pushing to get closer . .. And to see. They tore the poor devil's clothes open to find out where he was hurt, others ran for help, while fresh swarms of folk came crowding up and thesilence died in an uproar of questions and tramping and the wailing ofwomen. He lay there, with his peaceful face turned to one side, lay onhis back, seemingly uninjured; a few drops of blood trickled from hismouth. His eyes were closed like those of a man asleep. 

"Such a height to fall!. .. So young, only a boy!"

Others stood chattering loudly, indifferently, as though about aneveryday occurrence, or looked up at the wall and showed one another fromwhere he had tumbled down. 

There was a sudden movement in the crowd; people jostled one another. 

"His mother's coming!" somebody whispered. 

They pressed closer and closer to watch the effect upon her, the womenwith an anguished consciousness of what she must be suffering, thatmother-pain which they understood so well. The men pushed to see whathappened, because everybody was looking. All eyes were fixed on thelittle woman who came running along, with those elderly little hurriedsteps, those two anxious eyes which showed all the dread of the tragedythey suspected. The people made way respectfully, as before one who isprivileged to approach and look upon what is hers. Those who could notmove back she dragged away mercilessly, gripping them with her hookedfingers, which she thrust out at every side in order to see closer. Itwas her . .. Her . .. Her son lying there, her own son; and she must get tohim. 

She saw him. He lay there and he was dead, the son, the child whom shehad seen leaving that morning alive and well. She stood aghast, out ofbreath after the great effort of hurrying, her throat pinched withdistress and sorrow and shock, her soul filled with all the pent-uptempest that was seeking an outlet. Her flat chest heaved and all herthin, frail little body quivered; her legs shook beneath her. Slowly andpainfully the sobs came welling up. 

The people waited in silence, more or less disappointed, saddened by allthat silent grief. Her eyes, the eyes of a mother, stared at the deadbody; and he did not look at her and he slept on and . .. And he wasasleep for ever, gone for ever: he would never see her again! This lastcut into her soul; a shrill scream came from her throat, she flung herlean brown hands together high above her head, wrung the crooked, gnarledfingers convulsively and then, with her fists clenched in her lap, sankimpotently to her knees, with her head against his. 

"Oh, it's such a pity, oh, it's such a pity!" she moaned; and the wordscontained all the awful depth of her woe, all the concentrated sorrow. "Oh, it's such a pity, such a pity!" she kept on repeating, finding noother words to express her grief and lending them power by force ofrepetition. 

He remained lying there . .. And she remained kneeling; and all that crowdof people stood silently looking on, startled and impressed by thatsacred, solemn mourning. And the impressive hush, the silence of allthose people, the desperate helplessness of those folk, she alonesuffering and crying and unable to help her child and the peopleunwilling to help him: that impotence pierced her soul; and the patientsuffering changed into a frenzied madness, a raging fury. With a terriblescream, like that of a goaded beast, a hoarse yell that came grating outof her parched throat, she thrust her arms, stiff with pain, like twosteel rods, under the arms of that limp corpse and, with a superhumaneffort, with Herculean strength exalted by suffering, she lifted thecorpse, pressed it to her body, raised it with her outstretched arms anddragged it, with its legs trailing behind it, hurrying along at a madpace, with the one idea of getting home with her child, her only child, away, far away from that callous crowd which desecrated her sorrow: thereshe would weep, sob out all her grief and find words, sweet words whichmust throb through her child and wake him and bring him back to life!

All that packed crowd had first followed her with their eyes, struckby the sudden outburst of that mad rage; and then they had goneafter her, inquisitively. And it did not last long before thepolice-constables--those phlegmatic posts with which any outbreak ofundue human emotion must always in the end collide--stopped them; theypulled those bony arms from round the corpse and took the little mother, now hanging slack and limp, one on either side by the arm and led heraway. The body was carried to the mortuary. 

With a resounding oath the foreman drove his folk back to work and setall that rolling activity going once more. 

The passers-by hastened away; and the saw screeched, the chisel tapped, the hammer banged, the bricks were hauled up on high and the gorgeousbuilding, the pride of a metropolis, stood resplendent in the glaringwhite mid-day sun, as if nothing had happened. 

 * * * * *

WHITE LIFE

 * * * * *

X

WHITE LIFE

Her life flowed on as a little brook flows under grass on a Sunday noonin summer, flowed on in calm seclusion, far from the bustle of the crowd, secretly, steadily, uninterrupted save by ever-recurring littleincidents, peacefully approaching old age. She sat in her little whiteroom, behind the muslin curtains, making lace. Her cottage stood a littleway back from the street, shining behind a neatly-raked flower-garden. 

The door was always shut and the curtains carefully drawn. Inside, everything was very clean: smooth, bare walls and the ceiling washed withmilk-white chalk through which shone a soft touch of blue; and thisbright cleanliness contrasted soberly with the things that hung on thewall. The chairs and furniture stood placed with care, as though nailedto the floor; over the mantel hung the copper Christ, a thin, elongatedfigure of Our Lord, with its sharp projections which shone when the suntouched them: a little figure which, so long dead, hung there so firmlynailed and looked so calmly from out of the small dark shadow-lines ofits face. 

The stove stood freshly blackened, with the waved white sand on itspolished pipe. [10] Over the door of the bedroom steps hung the glass casewith the waxen image of Our Lady, a girlish figure clad in broad whitefolds, with bright-red, cherry cheeks, smiling sweetly upon a doll whichshe carried in her arms. On the other wall was a glaring framed print, inwhich a Child Jesus romped with curly-headed angels in a motley greenwood, with behind it a sunny perspective gleaming with paradisiandelights. 

[10] The Flemish stove is connected with the chimney by a flat pipe, on which the plates and other utensils are heated. On Sundays, the stove, the pipe and all are blacked and polished with black-lead and turpentine; and it is an old custom of neat house-wives to powder the stove-pipe with white sand from the dunes. The sand is allowed to run through a little opening in the hand in a series of fine wavy lines, forming a delicate pattern on the black pipe. 

From the ceiling, in a white cage, hung the canary, which hopped from oneperch to the other, all day long, without ever singing. On thewindow-seat, behind the little curtains, blossomed tall geraniums andphlox, which, through the mesh of the muslin curtains, sent a blissfulfragrance through the room. 

Life went its monotonous gait, measured by the slow tick of the hangingclock, that big, stupid, laughing face which so pitilessly turned its twounequal fingers round and round. Outside, close by, went the steel blowsof the smith's hammer or the biting file that grated against her wall. 

The sun that laughed so pleasantly through the windows and came and putall those things in a white gleaming light beamed right through into herlittle white soul: it was yet like that of a child, had remainedinnocent, never been soiled or troubled; and, now that the bad storm-timewas over, it lay still in the passionless restfulness of waning life, quite taken up with all manner of harmless occupations, devotions andacquired ways of an old, god-fearing woman-person. Her face, which waswreathed in a round white goffered cap, had the smooth, yellow, waxenpallor of the statue of Our Lady, in church, and her features the severe, sober kindliness of nuns'. She was dressed in modest, stiffly-fallingfolds of unrumpled lilac silk, like the queens in old prints. 

She spent those long, quiet days at her lace-pillow. That was her onlyamusement, her treasure: this half-rounded arch of smooth, blue paper onthe wooden pillow-stool, occupied by a swarm of copper pins, withcoloured-glass heads, and of finely-turned wooden bobbins, with slendernecks and notched bodies, hanging side by side from fine white threads orheaped up behind a steel bodkin. All this array of pins, holes, drawersand trays had for her its own form and meaning, a small world in whichshe knew her way so well. Her deft white fingers knew how to throw, change, catch and pick up those bobbins so nimbly, so swiftly; she stuckher pins, which were to give the thread its lie and form, so accuratelyand surely; and, under her hand, the lace grew slowly and imperceptiblyinto a light thread network, grew with the leaves and flowers of hergeraniums and phlox and the silent course of time. 

'Twas quite a feast when, in the evening, she wound off the ravelled endand carefully examined the white web. She closely followed all the knots, curves and twists of those transparent little veins; and 'twas withregret that she rolled up the lace again and put it away in the drawer. 

When all her peaceful thoughts had been fully pondered, when all thatlife of every day, all that even round of happenings, like little whiteflakes floating in the sunny sky, had drifted by through thethought-chambers of her soul and when the light began to fail out ofdoors and in, she took her rosary and prayed, for hours on end, slowlytelling the smooth beads between her fingers until, when it grew quitedark, she started awake and became aware that for some time she had beentelling the strokes of the smith's hammer on the other side of the wall. Then she laid herself between the white sheets and tried to sleep. 

Two days ago the grid of her stove broke and today she had taken it to bemended; she had been to the smith's and now she could not get out of hermind what she had seen there: a black cave, like an oven, down threesteps; a dark hole hung and filled on every side with black iron tools;and, amid all this jumble, an anvil and, in the red glow from the dancinglight of the smithy fire, a small, stunted, black little fellow, hiddenout of knowledge in that gloom; a bent, thin little man wound in aleathern apron and with a black face, from which a pair of good-humouredeyes peered out at her, through the shining glasses of his copper-rimmedspectacles, like two little lights in the dark. She had gone down thosethree steps, looking round shyly, afraid of getting dirty; had explainedher business to that impish little chap; and had then hastily fled fromthat hell. Now it seemed to her that those two eyes had looked at her sokindly; and she wondered how any one could live in such a hole and be aChristian creature . .. And yet that smith looked as if he had a goodheart. 

Next day, she was thinking again of the little man and his dark, hauntedhole; and she sniffed the scent of her geraniums with a new pleasure andlooked with more gladness at her trim little dwelling and herlace-pillow. She now enjoyed, realized, with all the sensual luxury ofher soul, that peaceful life of hers, something like that of the yellow, waxen Virgin high up there on the wall, under her glass shade. And yetshe was sorry for her good neighbour: it must be so dreary alone, amidall that dirt. .. . She worked at her lace, prayed and tried to think ofnothing more. 

He brought the new grid home himself. At first, she was shy with the man:she got up, went to the stove, turned back again and only now and thendared look at the smith from under her eyes. He was wrapped up in hiswork, stood bending over the stove, trying to fix the grid. Seen likethat in the light, the little chap looked quite different to her eyes: hewas no longer young, his breath came quickly; but in all that he didthere was something so friendly, so kindly, something almostwell-mannered, that went oddly with his dirty clothes and his black face. The little smith was known in the village as a lively person, who led alonely life, but who was able also to divert a company: he knew hiscustomers and knew how to manage them all. Here he took good care not todirty the floor: he spat his tobacco-juice into the coal-box and touchednothing with his hands. When at last the grid was fixed, he stayedtalking a little: he spoke of her nice little life among all those whitethings; paid her a compliment on her pretty flowers and shining copper;and then came close to look at her lace-pillow. Lastly, seeing that shewas not at her ease, that she answered his remarks so shortly andhesitatingly, he gave a push to his cap, refused to say what she owed himand was gone with a skip and a jump. 

One Sunday, after vespers, he came again, bowed politely, fetched a bitof paper out of his waistcoat-pocket and sat down on a chair by thestove. This visit annoyed her: with the quickness with which small-mindedpeople weigh and think over a matter, her eyes went to the window to seeif anybody had observed him come in and was likely to set evil tonguesa-clacking. It was almost bound to be so; and, to keep her honour safe, she opened her door, mumbling something about "warm weather" and "thetobacco-smoke which made her cough. "

She went to her room, fetched some money and paid the bill. The smith satwhere he was, knocked out his little stone pipe and put it in his insidepocket; he did not look at his money and, in his hoarse little voice, began to talk of quite common things: of wind and weather and the currentnews of the village; always chatting in the same tone, a jumble of long, breathless statements. From this he went on to his dreary, lonely life, the monotonous quiet of it and the danger of thieves, sickness and suddendeath. She said not a word, but, against the bright window-curtains, thesharp, heavy profile of her face, together with the flutes of her whitecap, went up and down in a continual nodding assent to everything hesaid. At the end, she took pleasure in hearing him talk, nor now lookedupon that clean-washed face of his as at all so ugly. It even did hergood to see some one sitting there who came to enliven the monotony ofthat long Sunday evening. By her leave, he had lighted a fresh pipe; andshe now sat sniffing up that unaccustomed smell, which rose in littlepuffs from behind the stove and floated round the room, filling it withlong rows of blue curls. 'Twas as if she were overcome by that quite newsmell of tobacco and she felt inclined to sleep; she stood up, to get ridof that slackness, shut the front-door and, without thinking what she wasdoing, asked if he would have some coffee. He nodded, gladly. 

She put the kettle on and got the coffee-pot ready, fetched out her bestcups and spoons and the white sugar. When the steam came rushing from thespout, she poured water on the coffee and they sat down, one on each sideof the table, to sip the savoury drink in tiny draughts. 'Twas long sinceshe had felt so comfortable and for the first time she thought withdislike of her lonely life. 'Twas late when he went home; she came withhim to the door . .. And saw black figures that strolled past in thestreet and perhaps had seen him leave. She had bad dreams all night: thepeople pointed their fingers at her and slanderous tongues spread uglythings about her. The whole of the next day her thoughts were in thesmithy; she swept the pavement more carefully and farther than usual, went now and then and looked out of window; and her little curtains wereleft open with a split in the middle. Yesterday, she had forgotten togive the canary fresh water to drink. The people looked at her in thestreet; two or three god-fearing gossips had let her walk home alone. This gave her great pain; 'twas as though a heavy load were weighing dayand night on her breast; and yet she was not sorry for what had happened. All these trifles could not make her forget her content. She said herprayers and performed her little duties with as much care as before andlived on, alone. 

On Sunday, she went to church very early and prayed long: it did her somuch good, that delightful whispering with God, that sweet kind Lord Wholistened to her so patiently and always sent her away with fresh courage, strengthened to walk on bravely along life's irksome way. Sometimes shewas frightened at her behaviour! She was gnawed by a reproachful thought:that she had left the straight path, that she no longer lived for Godalone, that she was forgetting her dear saints and busy with sinfulthoughts. And yet, when she carefully considered everything, nothing hadhappened that seemed to her blameworthy; all that change in her life hadcome as of itself and in spite of herself; and really, after all, therewas no harm in it. She prayed for that good man, who certainly needed herspiritual aid: he went so seldom to church and lived in such a drearyblack hole. Her prayers and interest would for sure bring him to a betterframe of mind. And yet she must watch, keep strong, avoid the dangers:her honour was a tender thing; and people were wicked. She stayed longerthan usual in the confessional and offered special prayers to every saintin the church. 

When she was back at home, she began her little Sunday duties: thelace-pillow was put away that day and she did nothing but arrange things, put things in their places, gather a fresh nosegay for the porcelain vasebefore Our Lady's statue and see to her cooking. She picked the witheredleaves from the geraniums, bound the branches of the phlox to the trellisand gave them fresh water from a little flowered can. She was speciallyfond of her little pot of musk: it stood on the window-seat, opposite herchair, carefully set in a rush cage stuck into the earth and fastened atthe top with a thread. Sometimes she took it on her lap, bent her faceover it and sniffed the pleasant smell in long draughts, until she wasalmost drunk with it. 

In the afternoon, she sat down at the window and read her Thomas àKempis. Then all was quite still: no hammering behind the wall, no boysin the street, only the soft tapping of the canary in his food-trough andthe tick of the pendulum; everything was quiet as though in an enchantedsleep. The sun glowed through the geranium-leaves and cast on thered-tiled floor a broad, round shadow which took the whole afternoon tocreep from the legs of the stove to the front-door. 

The flies buzzed round on the rafters of the ceiling or ran along thecracks of the white-scoured table. Her thoughts wandered wearily andlazily through the wise maxims of her book and she sometimes sat peeringat the funny shape of a coloured initial which, after long looking, became such a silly figure, one that no longer looked in the least like aletter, but was rather something in the form of a vice. .. . The lines ofprint ran into one another, the maxims said all sorts of foolish things, her eyes closed, her head nodded and she sank, with all those peacefulthings, into perfect rest. 

After dinner, the smith had had a sleep; then he washed his face, put onhis best clothes and went past her window to vespers. In the evening, shesaw him again when he went to the customers for a pot of beer: this timehe gave her a friendly nod. 

For her, Sunday passed like all the other days; she prayed longer andclosed her shutter earlier for fear of the drunkards. After saying a longrow of graces which she knew by heart, she went to her bedroom. In thestuffy air of that closed upper chamber, she lay thinking. She was notsleepy and it was nice, in the evening stillness, covered in her whitesheets, to lie with her eyes looking through the split in the whitecurtains at the moon which hung shining outside. 

Now she gave free scope to her thoughts, until all of that had again beenpondered round and pondered out. Then it became so funny to her: 'twas asif she were long dead now and floating in a pale and scented air in thecompany of sweet saints and angels. But it was oh, so hazy andindistinct! It always escaped her when she wanted to enjoy it moreclosely and to give the thing a name. 

It was night when the smith came home, a little tipsy, deceived by hisgreat thirst and the double effect of the beer in that warm weather. Hewas very cheery, without really knowing why; something like a softbuzzing fire ran through all his body and made him tingle with happiness. They had chaffed him that evening about the old maid next door and he nowfelt inclined just to tell her about it. 

Wasn't it a shame for two people to lie here so quietly and drearily, parted by a bit of a wall, when they could have been amusing eachother?. .. His white neighbour was sure to be asleep by now . .. And, if heonly dared . .. And, quicker indeed than he intended, he gave three littletaps on the wall and lay listening, all agog. .. . Three like little tapsanswered! This was so unexpected that at first he sat wondering whetherhe could believe his ears; then he began to swim and sprawl in his bed, bit his teeth so as not to shout out his overflowing delight and startedbanging on the wall, this time with his fists. It was too late to-night:to-morrow, he would go to her and ask her . .. And then they wouldboth . .. And he would no longer be alone, always alone, and would havesome one to care for him, to look after him. .. . In all this happiness hedrowsed off gently, rocked in another world, like a little wax doll in apale-blue paper box. 

She had started out of her sleep at those three taps and had answered, not knowing why; then she had got frightened at that wild man behind herwall, had jumped out of bed and struck a light and sat waiting until thenoise stopped; then she commended her soul into the Lord's hands and fellsoftly asleep. 

The first time that he went to see her, he found the door shut. Once, when he met her in the street, she kept her eyes carefully cast down andpassed him without a sign of greeting. Her curtains remained drawn andshe never came to the door now. He went home and sat musing on his anvil. All his plan was blown to bits; he found himself sadly duped and turnedred with anger when folk spoke of his dear neighbour. He hammered andfiled from morning till night; and she must now be making her lace. 

Time pushed past, divided into even days, along a smooth road that leddown the mountain-slope of summer. The leaves fell from the geraniums andthe phlox. The neatly-cut-out paper fly-catcher was put away and the lamphung up in its place. With the sad, short days came the grey, misty sky, the dismal, dripping rain and the white snow. The village lay dead forhalf the day, dark, with here and there a little ray of light gleamingthrough the shutters. 

And it became gradually drearier for her: that calm rest, in which shehad once found such a pure delight, was now a heavy weariness. She longedfor change, for something different which she could not justly define, orelse to live again as before, alone and with nothing but herself. She hadstruggled and fought to rid herself of that obsession, but it followedher everywhere: she saw him go by, even when her eyes were fixed on thelace-pillow, the stove, or the chair on which he had sat; and there wasthat constant hammering and scratching behind her wall: everywhere shesaw those two kind eyes behind the copper rims of his spectacles; and shesometimes caught herself contentedly tracing the good-natured features ofhis little black face. She had prayed more than ever and evoked quite newsaints; and now she let herself drift along at God's pleasure, no longereven thinking of her weakness. Perhaps she was the instrument of aBlessed Providence, destined blindly to do good. 

The little curtains had long been pushed apart again; and, each time thatshe heard approaching footsteps, her heart went beating and her eyeslooked eagerly to see if by chance . .. It was not he. 

Sometimes, an anxious fluttering drove her to the front-door, where shestood looking round for a while and then, ashamed of herself, wentindoors again. Quite against her habit, she now made use of her glass: inthe middle of her work, she went to see if the two glossy black tresseslay neatly on her forehead and if the ribbons of her cap were properlytied and fastened. She put on her clothes more carefully and folded andrefolded her kerchief till it enclosed her body in a pretty shape. Frombefore the moment of starting for church, her heart began to beat; sheshut her garden-gate more noisily and stepped loudly along the pavementuntil she came to the smith's first window, firmly resolved this time atleast to look up and say good-morning; but she always met some one whonoticed her; and she was in church by the time that, with a sigh, she hadput off her intention until next day. 

At night, in bed, she lay thinking over all these little events; and itwas a glad day or a sad day for her according as she had more or lessoften caught sight of the little smith. 

One evening, after benediction, she saw him come walking under the treesof the churchyard. Not a soul saw them. Now she really must have courage;but again the blood came to her throat and she felt that once again itwould lead to nothing. He had just looked round before she came up to himand then he sat down on the stone step before the Calvary, as though hewanted to chat with her there at his ease:

"Good-evening, Sofie, " he said, with a smile. "Have you been to say yourprayers. Don't you ever say a little one for me? I want it so badly: mysoul's as black as my apron and I can't even read a prayer-book. .. . "

He made all this speech in a soft, fondling little tone and then satsmirking to see what she would say. There was nothing that she longed formore than to save his soul:

"Can you say the Rosary?" she asked. 

"Yes, but I haven't one. "

"Would you like me to give you one?"

"Oh, rather . .. If you'll be so good!"

She bent close to him and whispered in his ear:

"Come and fetch it, to-morrow evening, when it's dark. "

They walked together through the peaceful twilit churchyard and, with acordial "Good-evening, " went home well pleased with themselves. 

For her it was an endless day; all the time she stood considering whatshe should say to him. He was coming and would sit smoking there againbehind the stove. Already she heard his pleasant, whispering talk and sawhis kind, upturned glance. She moved about restlessly to set everythingin order. The shutters were closed quite early and the lamp burning. Nowshe went and had one more look outside and it was pitch-dark, with nevera moon. On the stroke of eight, the door opened: he was there, with hisSunday jacket on, his red scarf and his leather shoes. She was mostfriendly, but did not at first know how to begin the conversation. 

He lit his pipe and snuffled some news of the village and of people whowere married, sick or dead. She made coffee, turned up the lamp andopened her bedroom door to give an outlet to the tobacco-smoke. Straightopposite him, deep in the half-darkness, he saw all that show of white:against the wall stood the bed, under a white canopy of curtains hangingin folds, set off with a white ball-fringe; also a praying-desk withvelvet cushions, above which was an image of the Sacred Heart, with goldflowers, and, hanging from a brass chain, a perpetual light glimmering ina little red glass; and, all around, on the white walls, little statuesand pictures, like a devout little tabernacle ashine with cleanliness. They drank their fragrant cup of coffee and nibbled lumps of white sugar. 

"And my rosary?" he asked. 

She fetched it out of the drawer of her lace pillow and came and satclose to him to teach him how to say it:

"Here, at the little cross, the I Believe in God the Father; then, ateach big bead, an Our Father; and, at the little ones, a Hail Mary. "

He sat with his legs drawn under his chair, with one hand at his chin, listening good-humouredly and, with a smile, repeating all she taughthim. Her eyes shone with happiness. Now the talk went easily on churchmatters and all the things of her pious little life; she showed him thepictures in her prayer-book, explained all the attributes of the saintsand told long stories of their lives and martyrdoms. 

He, also, told her of his youth, when he made his first communion and wasthe best little man in the whole village. It was striking ten when hewent home; and he had promised to come and listen to her again. 

Every evening, when it grew dark, he sat peeping to see if there was noone in the street and then cautiously crept in through her gate. Hebrought her old books from his loft; and, while he smoked his pipe, shelit the candle before the statue of Our Lady and started talking, verygently, so as not to be heard outside. She read whole chapters out ofThomas à Kempis and _The Pious Pilgrim_, _The Dove amongst the Rocks_, _The Spiritual Bridegroom_, or _The Sacred Meditations_. They sat therefor hours at a time gazing at each other and smiling. When it grew late, she went and looked outside and, when the moment was favourable, shecarefully let him out. She thanked Our Lord for making her so happy andoften prayed that it might last and she win the smith's soul for Heavenand that their doing might all the same be kept hidden from wickedpeople. 

St. Eloi's Day is the holiday of smiths and husbandmen. In the morning, the farmers all went together to mass and thence, after a glass, tosettle their yearly reckoning at the smith's. At noon there was a bigdinner at the inn. They ate much and drank more; and, from afternoon tilllate in the evening, the smiths' men and the peasants loafed along thestreets and sang ribald songs. The steadiest of them walked abouttalking, from one tavern to the other. They were nearly all drunk. Shesat peeping at it from behind her curtain and was vexed at all thiswantonness and rather glad that she had not yet seen "him" anywhere. Shesaid her evening prayers and was just going to bed when she heard thedoor open and the smith stepped in. 

He carried his pipe upside down in his mouth, his eyes looked wild andhis speech was incoherent. She had never seen him like that; and she wasfrightened at his strange gestures. She wanted him to sit down, but hecame up to her with his arms open, as if to catch hold of her. Shestepped back in affright, pushed him away from her. His breath stank ofdrink and his thin legs tottered under him. She began to beseech him, that it was late and that he should go home and that people wouldknow. .. . But his eyes looked at her roguishly and, with bent head andoutstretched arms, he kept on trying to come closer. Filled with dread, she wavered away behind the tables and chairs, whimpering:

"If you please, if you please, Sander, go home; you frighten me!"

Suddenly, he nipped out the flame of the lamp with his fingers. It wasquite dark. 

"Sander! Sander! What do you want? Heavens! He's drunk! And I'm here allalone! Lord God, St. Catherine, help!"

He still spoke not a word, but uttered ugly growls; and she heard hishands rub and grope along the wall, against herself. She pulled open thedoor of her bedroom and fled up the stairs and fell in a heap in thecorner beside her bed. There she sat waiting, out of breath. .. . Yes, hisheavy shoes had found the steps; and, still growling, he entered theroom. He felt the bed, lay down flat on his stomach and reached out withhis arms; then he found her sitting sighing. She felt those two weedyarms grasp her and was caught in them as in an iron band. She moaned andscreamed for help. His dirty, slimy mouth pressed her lips . .. And thenshe felt herself sink away, out of the world. The people who heard thecries came to see what was the matter. They hauled the drunkard outsideand laid her on the bed. When they saw that she was better, they wentaway again. 

She lay stretched out slackly in the dark. First, still quite overcome, as though drunk with sleep, she slowly, through that dim whirl of stormythoughts, came to understand what had happened: all her misfortune, whichyawned before her like a deep, black well. She was ashamed, disgustedwith herself and felt a great aversion, a loathing for all the world:people were a pack of lustful pigs. .. . And he too: that was over now, suddenly over, for good and all. .. . And he . .. No, he had deceived her, grievously defiled her. And now to have to go on living like that! It wasdone past recall: she was punished for her trustfulness . .. And thosesame kind eyes and that friendly face; only yesterday, they had saidtheir evening prayers together and so devoutly! Oh, 'twas such a pity!And what would people say?. .. And the priest?. .. And Our Lord and all Hisdear saints?. .. She fell into ever-deepening despair and saw never a wayout. Very far away shone her pure little life of former days, her whiteand peaceful little soul floating in that unruffled blue sanctity, inthat fragrant twilight of evening after evening . .. And all this he hadnow crushed in one second and stamped to pieces. And he was dead to her, he with whom she had dreamed so sweetly and lived in glad expectation. Inher wretchedness, she was left stark alone, abandoned like a poor babe inthe snow. She plunged her face into the white sheets and cried. She wouldhave liked to pine away there, in that kindly darkness, and never, neverto see daylight again. 

 * * * * *

THE END

 * * * * *

XI

THE END

Zeen pulled up his bent back, wiped the sweat from his forehead with hisbare arm and drew a short breath. 

Zalia, with her head close to the ground, went on binding her sheaves. 

The sun was blazing. 

After a while, Zeen took up his sickle again and went on cutting down thecorn. With short, even strokes, with a swing of his arm, the sickle roseand, with a "d-zin-n-n" fell at the foot of the cornstalks and broughtthem down in great armfuls. Then they were hooked away and dragged backin little even heaps, ready to be bound up. 

It did not last long: he stopped again, looked round over all that powerof corn which still had to be cut and beyond, over that swarming plain, which lay scorching, so hugely far, under that merciless sun. He sawZalia look askant because he did not go on working and, to account forhis resting, drew his whetstone from his trouser-pocket and began slowlyto sharpen the sickle. 

"Zalia, it's so hot. "

"Yes, it's that, " said Zalia. 

He worked on again, but slowly, very slackly. 

The sweat ran in great drops down his body; and sometimes he felt as ifhe would tumble head foremost into the corn. Zalia heard his breath comeshort and fast; she looked at him and asked what was the matter. His armsdropped feebly to his sides; and the hook and sickle fell from his hands. 

"Zalia, I don't know . .. But something's catching my breath like; and myeyes are dim. .. . "

"It's the heat, Zeen, it'll wear off. Take a pull. "

She fetched the bottle of gin from the grass edge of the field, poured asip down his throat and stood looking to see how it worked:

"Well?"

Zeen did not answer, but stood there shivering and staring, with his eyesfixed on a bluebonnet in the cut corn. 

"Come, come, Zeen, get it done! Have just another try: it'll get coolerdirectly and we'll be finished before dark. "

"Oh, Zalia, it's so awfully hot here and it'll be long before it'sevening!"

"But, Zeen, what do you feel?"

Zeen made no movement. 

"Are you ill?"

"Yes, I am, Zalia. No, not ill, but I feel so queer and I think I oughtto go home. "

Zalia did not know what to do: she was frightened and did not understandhis funny talk. 

"If you're ill . .. If you can't go on, you'd better get home quick:you're standing there like a booby. "

Zeen left his sickle on the ground and went straight off the field. Shesaw him go slowly, the poor old soul, lurching like a drunken man, anddisappear behind the trees. Then she took her straw-band and bundled upall the little heaps of corn, one after the other, and bound them intosheaves. She next took the sickle and the hook and just went cutting awaylike a man: stubbornly, steadily, with a frenzied determination to get itdone. The more the corn fell, the quicker she made the sickle whizz. 

The sweat ran down her face; now and then, she jogged back the straw hatfrom over her eyes to see how much was left standing and then went oncutting, on and on. She panted in the doing of it. .. . She was therealone, on that outstretched field, in that heat which weighed upon herlike a heavy load; it was stifling. She heard no sound besides the swishof her steel and the rustling of the falling corn. 

When at last she could go on no longer, she took a sip at the bottle andgot new strength. 

The sun was low in the sky when she stood there alone on the smoothfield, with all the corn lying flat at her feet. Then she startedbinding. 

The air grew cooler. When the last sheaf was fastened in its straw-bandand they now stood set up in heavy stooks, like black giants in straightrows, it began to grow dark. She wiped the sweat from her face, slippedon her blue striped jacket, put the bottle in her hat, took the sickleand hook on her shoulder and, before going, stood for a while looking ather work. She could now see so very far across that close-shorn plain;she stood there so alone, so tall in that stubble-field, everything layso flat and, far away over there, the trees stood black and that mill andthe fellow walking there: all as though drawn with ink on the sky. Itseemed to her as if the summer was now past and that heavy sultriness wasa last cramped sigh before the coming of the short days and the cold. 

She went home. Zeen was ill and it was so strange to be going backwithout him. It was all so dreary, so dim and deadly, so awful. Along theedge of the deep sunken path the grasshoppers chirped here and there, allaround her: an endless chirping on every side, all over the grass and thefield; and it went like a gentle woof of voices softly singing. Thissinging at last began to chatter in her ears and it became a whiningrustle, a deafening tumult and a painful laughter. From behind thepollard her cat jumped on to the path: it had come to the field to meether and, purring cosily, was now arching its back and loitering betweenZalia's legs until she stroked it; then it ran home before her with greatbounds. The goat, hearing steps approach, put its head over thestable-door and began to bleat. 

The house-door was open; as she went in, Zalia saw not a thing before hereyes, but she heard something creaking on the floor. It was Zeen, tryingto scramble to his feet when he heard her come in. 

"Zeen!" she cried. 

"Yes, " moaned Zeen. 

"How are you? No better yet? Where are you?. .. Why are you lying flat onthe floor like this?"

"Zalia, I'm so ill . .. My stomach and. .. . "

"You've never been ill yet, Zeen! It won't be anything this time. "

"I'm ill now, Zalia. "

"Wait, I'll get a light. Why aren't you in bed?"

"In bed, in bed . .. Then it'll be for good, Zalia; I'm afraid of my bed. "

She felt along the ceiling for the lamp, then in the corner of the hearthfor the tinder-box; she struck fire and lit up. 

Zeen looked pale, yellow, deathlike. Zalia was startled by it, but, tocomfort him:

"It'll be nothing, Zeen, " she said. "I'll give you a little Haarlem oil. "

She pulled him on to a chair, fetched the little bottle, put a few dropsinto a bowl of milk and poured it down his throat. 

"Is it doing you good?"

And Zeen, to say something, said:

"Yes, it is, Zalia, but I'd like to go to sleep, I'm feeling cold now andI've got needles sticking into my side . .. Here, see?"

And he pressed both his hands on the place. 

"Yes, you're better in bed; it'll be gone in the morning and we'll fetchin the corn. "

"Is it cut?"

"All done and stooked; if it keeps fine to-morrow, we'll get it all intothe barn. "

Zalia lifted him under his armpits and they crawled on like that into theother room, where the loom stood with the bed behind it. She helped himtake off his jacket and trousers and put him to bed, tucked him nicelyunder the blanket and put his night-cap on his head. 

Then she went and lit the fire in the hearth, hung up the pot with thegoat's food, washed the potatoes and sat down to peel them for supper. 

She had not peeled three, when she heard Zeen bringing up. 

"That's the oil, it'll do him good, " she thought and, fetching a can ofwater from outside, gave him a bowl to drink. 

Then she went back to her peeling. A bit later, she sat thinking of otherremedies--limeflowers, sunflower-seeds, pearl barley, flowers ofsulphur--when suddenly she saw Mite Kornelje go by. She ran out andcalled:

"Mite!"

"What is it, Zalia?"

"Mite, Zeen is ill. "

"What, ill? All at once?"

"Yes, all of a sudden, cutting the corn in the field. "

"Is he bad?"

"I don't know, I've given him some Haarlem oil, he's been sick; he'scomplaining of pains in his side and in his stomach; he's very pale: youwouldn't know him. "

They went indoors. Zalia took the lamp and both passed in, between theloom and the wall by Zeen's bed. 

He lay staring at the ceiling and catching his breath. Mite stood lookingat him. 

"You must give him some English salt, [11] Zalia. "

[11] Epsom salts. 

"Why, Mite, I never thought of that; yes, he must have some Englishsalt. "

And she climbed on to a chair and took from the plank above the bed adusty calabash full of little paper bags and packets. 

She opened them one by one and found canary-seed, blacklead, washing-blue, powdered cloves, cinnamon, sugar-candy, burnt-ash . .. Butno English salt. 

"I'll run home and fetch some, Zalia. "

"Yes, Mite, do. "

And Mite went off. 

"Well, Zeen, no better yet?"

Zeen did not answer. She took a pail of water and a cloth, cleaned awaythe mess from beside the bed and then went back to peel her potatoes. 

Mite came back with the English salt. Treze Wizeur and Stanse Zegers, whohad heard the news, also came to see how Zeen was getting on. Mitestirred a handful of the salt in a bowl of water and they all four wentto the sick man's bed. Zeen swallowed the draught without blinking. Miteknew of other remedies, Stanse knew of some too and Treze of many more:they asked Zeen questions and babbled to him, made him put out his tongueand felt his pulse, cried out at his gasping for breath and his palecolour and his dilated pupils and his burning fever. Zeen did not stirand lay looking at the ceiling. When he was tired of the noise, he said:

"Leave me alone. "

And he turned his face to the wall. 

Then they all went back to the kitchen. The goat's food was done. Zaliahung the kettle with water on the hook and made coffee; and the fourwomen sat round the table telling one another stories of illness. In theother room there was no sound. 

A bit later, Mite's little girl came to see where mother was all thistime. She was given a lump of sugar and sat down by her mother. 

"Zalia, have you only one lamp?" asked Treze. 

"That's all, Treze, but I have the candle. "

"What candle?"

"The blessed candle. "

"We've not come to that yet: it's only that Zeen has to lie in the darklike this and we have to go to and fro with the lamp to look at him. "

"Zeen would rather lie in the dark. "

"I'll tell you what: Fietje shall run home and fetch something, won'tyou, Fietje? And say that mother is going to stay here because Zeen isdying. "

Fietje went off. The coffee was ready and when they had gulped down theirfirst bowl, they went to have another look in the room where the sick manlay. 

Zeen was worse. 

"We must sit up with him, " said Stanse. 

"For sure, " said Treze. "I'll go and tell my man: I'll be back at once. "

"Tell Free as you're passing that I'm staying here too, " said Stanse. 

"We must eat, for all that, " said Zalia; and she hung the potatoes overthe fire. 

Then she went to milk the goat and take it its food. It was bright as dayoutside and quiet, so very quiet, with still some of the heat of the sunlingering in the air, which weighed sultrily. She crept into the darkgoat-house, put down the pot with the food and started milking. 

"Betje, Betje, Zeen is so ill; Zeen may be dying, Betje!"

She always clacked to her goat like that. Two streams of milk cameclattering in turns into the little pail. 

People came: Treze and Mite's little girl, with a lantern, and BarbaraDekkers, who had also come to have a look. 

"I'm here, " said Zalia, "I've done, I'm coming at once. "

They stood talking a bit outside in the moonlight and then went in. 

"Perhaps my man'll come on, " said Treze. "A man is better than threewomen in illness; and Virginie's coming too: I've been to tell her. "

"Well, well, " said Barbara, "who'd ever have thought it of Zeen!"

"Yes, friends, and never been ill in his life; and he turned seventy. "

Stanse mashed the potatoes; Zalia poured a drain of milk over them andhung them over the fire again. 

"Have you all had your suppers?" she asked. 

"Yes, " said Treze and Barbara and Mite. 

"I haven't, " said Stanse. 

Zalia turned the steaming potato-mash into an earthen porringer and sheand Stanse sat down to it. The others drank a fresh bowl of coffee. 

They were silent. 

The door opened and from behind the screen came a great big fellow with ablack beard:

"What's up here? A whole gathering of people: is it harvest-treat to-day, Zalia? Why, here's Barbara and Mite and. .. . "

"Warten, Zeen is ill. "

"Zeen?. .. Ill?"

"Yes, ill, man, and we're sitting up. "

Warten opened wide eyes, flung the box which he carried over his shoulderby a leather strap to the ground and sat down on it:

"Ha! So Zeen's ill. .. He's not one of the youngest either. "

"Seventy-five. "

They were silent. The womenfolk drank their coffee. Warten fished out apipe and tobacco from under his blue smock and sat looking at the ringsof smoke that wound up to the ceiling. 

"Well, perhaps I've come at the right time, if that's so. "

"You can help sit up. "

"Have you had your supper, Warten?"

"Yes, Zalia, at the farm. "

"And how's trade?" asked Stanse. 

"Quietly, old girl. "

They heard a moaning in the other room. Barbara lit the lantern and allwent to look. Warten stayed behind, smoking. 

Zeen lay there, on a poverty-stricken little bed, low down near theground, behind the loom, huddled deep on his bolster under a dirtyblanket: a thin little black chap, leaning against a pillow in thedancing twilight of the lantern. His eyes were closed and his bony facehalf-hidden in the blue night-cap. His breath rustled; and each puff fromhis hoarse throat, blowing out the thin flesh of his cheeks, escapedthrough a little opening on one side of his sunken lips, which each timeopened and shut. 

"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" cried Barbara. 

"That's bad, that's bad, " said Stanse and shook her head. 

"His eyes are shut and yet he's not asleep!"

"Zeen! Zeen!" cried Mite and she pushed him back by his forehead to makehim look up. "Zeen! Zeen! It's I: don't you know Mite?"

"Oof!" sighed Zeen; and his head dropped down again without his eyesopening. 

"He's got the fever, " said Barbara. "Just feel how his forehead's burningand he's as hot as fire. "

"Haven't you poulticed him?" asked Stanse. "He wants poultices on hisfeet: mustard. "

"We haven't any mustard and it's far to the village. "

"Then he must have a bran bath, Zalia. Stanse, put on the kettle. "

"Have you any bran, Zalia?"

"No, not ready; but there's maize. "

"And a sieve?"

"Yes, there's a sieve. "

"Hi, Warten, come and sift!"

Warten came in:

"Zeen, how are you, my boy? Oh, how thin he is! And his breath . .. It'sspluttering, that's bad. He'll go off quickly, Barbara, it seems to me. "

"Not to-night, " said Treze. 

"Warten, go to the loft, take the lamp and sift out a handful of maize;Zeen must have a bran bath at once. "

Warten went up the stair. After a while, they heard above their heads theregular, jogging drag of the sieve over the boarded ceiling and the finemeal-dust snowed down through the cracks, whirling round the lamp, andfell on Zeen's bed and on the women standing round. 

Zeen nodded his head. They held a bowl of milk to his mouth; two littlewhite streaks ran down from the corners of his mouth into hisshirt-collar. 

The sieve went on dragging. The women looked at Zeen, then at one anotherand then at the lantern. In the kitchen, the kettle sang drearily. .. . 

Warten came down from the loft with half a pailful of bran. Barbarapoured the steaming water on it and flung in a handful of salt. 

They took the clothes off the bed and pulled his feet into thebran-water. Zeen groaned; he opened his eyes wide and looked round wildlyat all those people. 

He hung there for a very long time, with his lean black legs out of thebed and the bony knees and shrunk thighs in the insipid, sickly-smellingsteam of the bran-water. Then they lifted him out and stuck his wet feetunder the bedclothes again. Zeen did not stir, but just lay with therattle in his throat. 

"What a sad sick man, " said Stanse, softly. 

Mite wanted to give him some food, eggs: it might be faintness. 

Treze wanted to bring him round with gin: her husband had once. .. . 

"Is there any, for the night?. .. " asked Stanse. 

"There's a whole bottle over there, in the cupboard. "

Zeen opened his eyes--two green, glazed eyes, which no longer sawthings--and wriggled his arms from under the clothes:

"Why don't you make the goat stop bleating?" he stammered. 

They looked at one another. 

"Zalia, why won't you speak to me?. .. And what are all these people doinghere?. .. I don't want any one to help me die!. .. I and Zalia. .. . I andZalia. .. . Look, how beautiful! Zalia, the procession's going up the wallthere. .. . Why don't you look?. .. It's so beautiful!. .. And I, I'm theonly ugly one in it. .. . "

"He's wandering, " whispered Treze. 

"And what's that chap doing here, Zalia?"

"It's I, Zeen, I: Warten the spectacle-man. "

His eyes fell to again and his cheeks again blew the breath through thelittle slit of his mouth. It rattled; and the fever rose. 

"It'll be to-night, " said Treze. 

"Where can Virginie be? She'll come too late. "

"Virginie is better than three doctors or a priest either, " thought Mite. 

"Zalia, I think I'd get out the candle. "

Zalia went to the chest and got out the candle. 

"Mother, I'm frightened, " whined Fietje. 

"You mustn't be frightened of dead people, child; you must get used toit. "

"Have you any holy water, Zalia?"

"Oh, yes, Barbara: it's in the little pot over the bed!"

"And blessed palm?"

"Behind the crucifix. "

There was a creaking in the kitchen and Virginie appeared past the loom:a little old woman huddled in her hooded cloak; in one hand she carried alittle lantern and in the other a big prayer-book. She came quietly up tothe bed, looked at Zeen for some time, felt his pulse and then, lookingup, said, very quietly:

"Zeen's going. .. . Has the priest been?"

"The priest?. .. It's so far and so late and the poor soul's so old. .. . "

"What have you given him?"

"Haarlem oil, English salt. .. . "

"And we put his feet in bran water. "

Virginie stood thinking. 

"Have you any linseed-meal?" she asked. 

"No. "

"Then . .. But it's too late now, any way. .. . "

And she looked into the sick man's eyes again. 

"He's very far gone, " thought Mite. 

"Got worse quickly, " said Barbara. 

Zalia said nothing; she stood at the foot of the bed, looking at herhusband and then at the women who were saying what they thought of him. 

"Get the blessed candle; we must pray, good people, " said Virginie; andshe put on her spectacles and went and stood with her book under thelight. 

The women knelt on low chairs or on the floor. Warten stood with hiselbows leaning on the rail of the bed, at Zeen's head. Treze took theblessed candle out of its paper covering and lit it at the lamp. 

Zeen's chest rose and fell and his throat rattled painfully; his eyesstood gazing dimly at the rafters of the ceiling; his thin lips were paleand his face turned blue with the pain; he no longer looked like a livingthing. 

Virginie read very slowly, with a dismal, drawling voice, through hernose, while Treze held Zeen's weak fingers closed round the candle. Itwas still as death. 

"May the Light of the World, Christ Jesus, Who is symbolized by thiscandle, brightly light thy eyes that thou mayest not depart this life indeath everlasting. Our Father. .. . "

They softly muttered this Our Father and it remained solemnly still, withonly Warten's rough grunting and Zeen's painful breathing and the goatwhich kept ramming its head against the wall. And then, slower bydegrees:

"Depart, O Christian soul, from this sorrowful world; go to meet thy dearBridegroom, Christ Jesus, and carry a lighted candle in thy hands: HeWho. .. . "

Then Barbara, interrupting her, whispered:

"Look, Virginie, he's getting worse; the rattle's getting fainter: turnover, you'll be too late. "

Treze was tired of holding Zeen's hand round the candle: she spilt a fewdrops of wax on the rail of the bed and stuck the candle on it. 

Zeen jerked himself up, put his hands under the clothes and fumbled withthem; then he lay still. 

"He's packing up, " whispered Barbara. 

"He's going, " one of the others thought. 

Virginie dipped the palm-branch into the holy water and sprinkled the bedand the bystanders; then she read on:

"Go forth, O Christian soul, out of this world, in the name of God theFather Almighty, Who created thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Sonof the living God, Who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, Who sanctified thee. "

"Hurry, hurry, Virginie: he's almost stopped breathing!"

The cat jumped between Zalia and Treze on to the bed and went makingdough with its front paws on the clothes; it looked surprised at allthose people and purred softly. Warten drove it away with his cap. 

"Receive, O Lord, Thy servant Zeen into the place of salvation which hehopes to obtain through Thy mercy. "

"Amen, " they all answered. 

"Deliver, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant from all danger of hell andfrom all pain and tribulation. "

"Amen. "

"Deliver, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant Zeen, as Thou deliveredst Enochand Elias from the common death of the world. "

"Amen. "

"Deliver, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant Zeen, as Thou deliveredst. .. . "

"I'm on fire! I'm on fire!" howled Warten. "My smock! My smock!"

And he jumped over all the chairs and rushed outside, with the othersafter him. 

"Caught fire at the candle!" he cried, quite out of breath. 

They put out the flames, pulled the smock over his head and poured wateron his back, where his underclothes were smouldering. 

"My smock, my smock!" he went on moaning. "Brand-new! Cost me forty-sixstuivers!"

And he stood with his smock in his hands, looking at the huge holes andrents. 

They made a great noise, all together, and their sharp voices rang farand wide into the still night. 

Virginie alone had remained by the bedside. She picked up the candle, litit again, put it back on the rail of the bed and then went on reading theprayers. When she saw that Zeen lay very calmly and no longer breathed, she sprinkled him with holy water for the last time and then wentoutside:

"People . .. He's with the Lord. "

It was as if their fright had made them forget what was happeningindoors: they rushed in, eager to know . .. And Zeen was dead. 

"Stone-dead, " said Barbara. 

"Hopped the twig!" said Warten. 

"Quick! Hurry! The tobacco-seed will be tainted!" screamed Mite; and shesnatched down two or three linen bags which hung from the rafters andcarried them outside. 

First they moaned; then they tried to comfort one another, especiallyZalia, who had dropped into a chair and turned very pale. 

Then they set to work: Treze filled the little glasses; Barbara hung thewater over the fire; and Warten, in his shirt-sleeves, stropped his razorto shave Zeen's beard. 

"And the children! The children who are not here!" moaned Zalia. "Heought to have seen the children!"

"First say the prayers, " ordered Virginie. 

All knelt down and, while Warten shaved the dead man, it went:

"Come to his assistance, all ye saints of God; meet him, all ye angels ofGod: receiving his soul, offering it in the sight of the Most High. .. . 

"To Thee, O Lord, we commend the soul of Thy servant, that being dead tothis world, he may live to Thee; and whatever sins he has committed inthis life, through human frailty, do Thou, in Thy most merciful goodness, forgive. .. . "

"Amen, " they answered. 

Virginie shut her book, once more sprinkled holy water on the corpse andwent home, praying as she went. 

Zalia made the sign of the Cross and closed her husband's eyes; then shelaid a white towel on a little table by the bed and put the candle on itand the crucifix and the holy water. 

Warten and Barbara took Zeen out of the bed and put him on a chair, washed him all over with luke-warm water, put a clean shirt on him andhis Sunday clothes over him; then they laid him on the bed again. 

"He'll soon begin to must, " said Barbara. 

"The weather's warm. "

"He's very bent: how'll they get him into the coffin?"

"Crack his back. "

Treze looked round for a prayer-book to lay under Zeen's chin and acrucifix and rosary for his hands. 

Mite took a red handkerchief and bound it round his head to keep hismouth closed. Fietje was still kneeling and saying Our Fathers. 

"It's done now, " said Barbara, with a deep sigh. "We'll have just onemore glass and then go to bed. "

"Oh, dear people, stay a little longer!" whined Zalia. "Don't leave mehere alone. "

"It's only, " said Mite, "that it'll be light early to-morrow and we'vehad no sleep yet. "

"Come, come, " said Barbara, to comfort her, "you mustn't take on now. Zeen has lived his span and has died happily in his bed. "

"Question is, shall we do as well?" said Mite. 

"And Siska and Romenie and Kordula and the boys, who are not here! Theyought to have seen their father die!. .. The poor children, they'll cryso!"

"They'll know it in good time, " said Warten. 

"And where are they living now?" asked Mite. 

"In France, the two oldest . .. And there's Miel, the soldier . .. It's intheir letters, behind the glass. "

"Give 'em to me, " said Treze. "I'll make my boy write to-morrow, beforehe goes to school. "

They were going off. 

"And I, who, with this all, don't know where I'm to sleep, " said Warten. "My old roost, over the goat-house: you'll be wanting that to-night, Zalia?"

Zalia wavered. 

"Zalia could come with me, " said Barbara. 

"And leave the house alone? And who's to go to the priest to-morrow? Andto the carpenter? And my harvest, my harvest! Yes, yes, Warten, do youget into the goat-house and help me a bit to-morrow. I shall sleep: whynot?"

"_Alla_[12], come, Fietje; mother's going home. "

[12] A corruption of the French _allez!_

They went; and Zalia came a bit of the way with them. Their wooden shoesclattered softly in the powdery sand of the white road; when they hadgone very far, their voices still rang loud and their figures looked likewandering pollards. 

In the east, a thin golden-red streak hung between two dark clouds. Itwas very cool. 

"Fine weather to-morrow, " said Warten; and he trudged off to hisgoat-house. "Good-night, Zalia. "

"Good-night, Warten. "

"Sleep well. "

"Sleep well too and say another Our Father for Zeen. "

"Certainly. "

She went in and bolted the door. Inside it all smelt of candle and themusty odour of the corpse. She put out the fire in the hearth, dipped herfingers once more in the holy water and made a cross over Zeen. While herlips muttered the evening prayers, she took off her kerchief, her jacketand her cap and let fall her skirt. Then she straddled across Zeen andlay right against the wall. She twisted her feet in her shift and creptcarefully under the bed-clothes. She shuddered. Her thoughts turned likethe wind: her daughters were in service in France and were now sleepingquietly and knew of nothing; her eldest, who was married, and her husbandand the children came only once a year to see their father; and eventhen. .. . And now they would find him dead. 

Her harvest . .. And she was alone now, to get it in. Warten would go tothe priest early in the morning and to the carpenter: the priest ought tohave been here, 'twas a comfort after all; but Zeen had always been goodand . .. Now to go dying all at once like this, without the sacraments. .. . 

Why couldn't she sleep now? She was so tired, so worn out with thatreaping; and it was so warm here, so stifling and it smelt queer: what abeing could come to, when he was dead!

Had she slept at all? She had been lying there so long . .. And there wasthat smell! She wished she had sent Warten away and gone herself to liein the goat-house; here, beside that corpse . .. But, after all, it wasZeen. .. . 

The flame of the candle flickered and everything flickered with it--theloom, the black rafters and the crucifix--in dark shadow-stripes upon thewall. 'Twas that kept her awake. She sat up and blew from where she was, but the flame danced more than ever and kept on burning. Then shecarefully stepped across Zeen and nipped out the candle with her fingers. It was dark now. .. . She strode back into bed, stepping on Zeen's leg; andthe corpse shook and the stomach rumbled. She held herself tucked againstthe wall, twisted and turned, pinched her eyes to, but did not sleep. Thesmell got into her nose and throat and it became very irksome, unbearable. And she got out of bed again, to open the window. A freshbreeze blew into the room; far away beyond, the sky began to brighten;and behind the cornfield she heard the singing beat of a sickle and thewhistling of a sad, drawling street-ditty:

"They're at work already. "

Now she lay listening to the whizzing beat and the rustle of the fallingcorn and that drawling, never-changing tune. .. . 

The funeral would be the day after to-morrow: already she saw all thetroop passing along the road and then in the church and then . .. Allalone, home again. Zeen was dead now and she remained . .. And all thosechildren, her children, who still had so long to live, would also growold, in their turn, and die . .. Ever on . .. And all that misery andslaving and then to go . .. And Zeen, her Zeen, the Zeen of yesterday, whowas still alive then and not ill. Her Zeen; and she saw him as a youngman over forty years ago: a handsome chap he was. She had lived so longwith Zeen and had known him so well, better than her own self; and thathe should now be lying there beside her . .. Cold . .. And never again . .. That he should now be dead. 

Then she broke down and wept. 

 * * * * *

THE END.