Two days have gone by. In the parish clerk’s day-room the brothers sit
round the table, chanting the alphabet as it is read out to them, now
by the parish clerk himself, now by his little eight-year old daughter.
So, a-b-c books in hand, they practise reading with perspiring brows.
But only five of the sons of Jukola are to be seen on the benches round
the table. Where can Juhani and Timo be? There, near the door, they
stand in the corner of shame, and their hair, which has newly been
coiled round the parish clerk’s muscular fist, still sticks up in a
high tangle.
Very slowly the brothers’ learning has proceeded, the fear-inspiring
strictness of their teacher tending rather to damp their zeal and their
spirits than to carry them onward. Juhani and Timo hardly knew more
than the letter A; the others’ knowledge has progressed a few letters
further. Only Eero had proved a great exception to the rest, and having
left the alphabet behind him, worked nimbly at spelling.
Evening drew nigh, but through the whole of that day the brothers
had not yet broken their fast. For the parish clerk, who had laid an
embargo on their provisions, was trying the effect of hunger on their
willingness to learn. And so, nipped by a raging hunger, Juhani stood
in his nook, shaking his round head, spitting and casting malevolent,
bull-like glances at his teacher. At his side Timo nodded, heedless
of the way of the world--At last, however, the parish clerk broke off
the lesson, saying: ‘Stop now and eat, you wooden horses, champ like
browsing goats in a garden. But remember, after this meal not a crumb
of food shall pass your lips until the alphabet is in your heads, you
hard-headed bulls. One hour I give you for your meal, but not a step
shall you take yet outside the door. I believe the healthiest thing
is to prolong your arrest until night, much the healthiest. Open your
mouths now, for your bags shall be in your hands this minute.’
Thus saying he departed and sent the brothers their provisions by a
serving maid, after which the door was firmly fastened.
TIMO. Where’s my bag?
LAURI. There’s thine and here’s mine. I could eat little
stones.
JUHANI. Now we shan’t eat a single morsel!
LAURI. What? Aren’t we to eat now?
JUHANI. Not a morsel!
LAURI. As well hold back the sea with thy palm.
JUHANI. Leave the bags sweetly in peace.
AAPO. What is thy idea?
JUHANI. To spite the parish clerk. We won’t eat now until
tomorrow has dawned. My blood boils, boys, and my head goes round like
Keitula’s windmill. But spite against spite.
AAPO. Such spite would make the old man laugh heartily.
JUHANI. Let him laugh! I’m not going to eat.--Eero syells
already, oh ay.--I’m not going to eat.
TUOMAS. Neither am I here, but on Sonnimäki Heath yonder.
There I’ll soon be sitting on a bolster of heather.
JUHANI. Right! There we’ll soon be tumbling.
EERO. I agree to your plan, boys.
AAPO. What madness now?
JUHANI. Away out of captivity!
AAPO. Brains ahoy!
JUHANI. Sonnimäki’s pines ahoy!
EERO. Just so! And our brains answer: ahoy!
JUHANI. Answer like a man.
AAPO. Simeoni, try thou thy best.
SIMEONI. Behave yourselves, brothers! But I must say we
weren’t meant for readers, and so farewell to all work in that field.
All the same, let our lives be blameless and decent; for we can live
like Christian people without being able to read, if we only believe.
AAPO. Thou tearest down, confound it, instead of building up.
JUHANI. Simeoni speaks the tongue of justice and fairness. Out
of this, boys; my nature can stand no more.
TUOMAS. It makes my heart ache to see Juhani being pounded.
Out of this, boys!
JUHANI. The matter’s settled. But don’t pity me, Tuomas; for
revenge is in my hand. Here I’ve been put through the mill, torn like
crab-bait, of a truth! And in my pocket I have a big handful of flax,
flax heckled by the parish clerk. But if this bunch doesn’t once stop
up the parish clerk’s gullet, it will be because I shall have made a
machine or some sort of works of it. The parish clerk has a throat, ay,
he has a throat; but I’ll say no more.
EERO. I know another, perhaps a better, way of using it.
We could twist the hair thou savest in thy pocket into a fine
fishing-line, to give to the parish clerk as a present for his good
teaching. But why do I incite thee to sin, when I know, as all of us
can agree with one mind, that punishment does a powerful lot of good?
JUHANI. Eero spells already. Look at the good boy, look.
EERO. Shame enough to be learning spelling at my age.
JUHANI. At thy age? What about our ages?
SIMEONI. He’s mocking us.
JUHANI. Ay, go on mocking, thou tare in Jukola’s wheatfield,
thou bitter leavening in Jukola’s Christian brother-dough, thou
hedgehog, thou prickly little swine, thou frog!
SIMEONI. Hush, for the parish clerk’s sake, hush!
JUHANI. Out of the dungeon, all with a single mind! The one
who tries to stop us now will get a whacking.
TUOMAS. Off away, all of us!
AAPO. Timo, thou stout-willed brother, what sayest thou?
TIMO. That ‘a coat can’t be made of birch-bark, or a parson
out of an old man’, so let us all go, all with a single mind. I can fix
the matter in another proverb: ‘An axe is ground on both sides’.
AAPO. Lauri, what art thou going to do?
LAURI. I’m off to Sonnimäki.
AAPO. Ah! Though the dead were to cry from their graves; ye
truants, ye madmen!
JUHANI. Even that wouldn’t help, but off and away, lad. Art
thou coming? Else--Lord Almighty!--there’ll be a flash and a crash from
here. Art thou coming?
AAPO. I’ll come, but first a word.
TUOMAS. A thousand words wouldn’t help now.
JUHANI. Not even if every word had a thousand swords.
EERO. And every sword a thousand blades.
JUHANI. A thousand fire-spitting blades. Just so; it wouldn’t
help a bit. Away from Marstrand, away from Siberia, away from the
dreadful jungle like seven balls out of the cannon’s mouth! Here’s
both a ball and a cannon, a loaded cannon that gets hotter and hotter,
that’s red-hot now and’ll soon go off. O beloved brothers and kinsmen
and offspring of the same mother! You saw how he twisted this forelock
round his fore-finger, then grabbed with all his fist like this, look,
like this, and then shook me until my teeth rang. Grrh!
TUOMAS. I saw it and my cheeks bulged with anger.
EERO. I heard Juhani’s teeth ring and saw Tuomas’s cheeks
bulge and was terrified, but then I thanked God on your behalf,
remembering all the good punishment can do.
JUHANI. Don’t, my dear brother, bring a fuse near the cannon’s
touch-pan, namely, into these two ears, don’t do it.
TUOMAS. Why wilt thou annoy him, Eero?
JUHANI. Eero is the parish clerk’s good boy. Well, that’s
good too, very good. But what harm have I done for the parish clerk to
torture me like this? Is it a crime that I have such a hard head? It
wouldn’t take much to make me cry.
TIMO. What have I done that my hair should be tugged so very
hard? Is it because I have the brains God in his wisdom once gave me?
LAURI. I too have had my hair pulled three times.
JUHANI. All of us have sweet memories of this place.--The door
open!
AAPO. Mark, we are behind closed doors.
TIMO. There’s a prop against the door, a strong prop.
JUHANI. It’ll break like a blade of grass; but on the other
hand, there’s the window. One swipe with my bag and you’ll hear a
musical tinkling and clinking.
AAPO. Is thy head altogether addled now?
JUHANI. With two days’ shaking, two days’ shaking, my boy!
SIMEONI. Don’t let us break the window, anyhow, but let us
speak nicely with the parish clerk.
JUHANI. Go to Hell and speak nicely with the Devil!--The
window to pieces and away out of prison. ‘Out the whole battalion!’
shouted the captain in his anger.
TUOMAS. Bolt the door, Eero.
EERO. Right; bolt the castle gate while the battalion marches
out of the fort’s back-door.--The door’s bolted.
AAPO. I warn you!
JUHANI. What’s done is done. See that!
AAPO. Thou awful man, openly godless!
SIMEONI. There now! It’s done! There went the window.
JUHANI. The window crashed and heaven flashed, at one swipe of
Juhani’s bag! That was a bang in Lazy-Jake’s style.
SIMEONI. Poor us!
JUHANI. The road’s open, wilt thou be off?
SIMEONI. I’ll come with you, brother dear.
JUHANI. Aapo, the road’s open, art thou coming?
AAPO. Why lift thy fist, madman. I’ll come, I’ll come. What
else can I do, with the Devil once in my sleigh?
JUHANI. Fire and lightning!
TUOMAS. Bags on back now and out of the window! The porch
shakes with footsteps.
JUHANI. Is it the parish clerk? I’ll smack him.
TUOMAS. Come!
JUHANI. It’s the parish clerk. I’ll smack him a little.
TUOMAS. Away! say I.
JUHANI. Don’t step in my way now. I love thee, brother Tuomas.
TUOMAS. I won’t let thee do deeds of terror. Hurry now
with me out of the window; there the others run already across the
potato-patch. Come!
JUHANI. Let go! Why dost thou fear deeds of terror? I’ll only
take him gently across my knee, lift up the long skirts of his coat
and smack him with my naked hand, and this hand will do the work well.
Let go, dear brother, or my heart’ll burst like Kork’s bagpipes. Let
go! thou seest how my head steams.
TUOMAS. We are eternal enemies if thou dost not obey me now.
Heed what I say.
JUHANI. Let’s go then. But I wouldn’t agree to this if I
didn’t love thee with all my heart.
They ceased talking, cast themselves out of the window on to the
hillside, and ran swiftly across the parish clerk’s potato-patch. The
pebbles rattled in the ditches, clumps of soil flew high into the
air, and soon one after the other they were lost to view in a dense
grove of alders. Then the parish clerk, the picture of awful rage,
burst in, waving a stout bamboo stave. In a high-pitched, screaming
voice he called the truants, but in vain. Out on the other side of the
alder-grove dashed the brothers; onward over a stony, rock-bestrewn
strip of ground they ran, onward through a thick belt of juniper,
onward through the rectory’s big, reed-edged meadow, over a wide,
echoing clearing, until they stood on the sandy road under Sonnimäki’s
sloping side. Up the cobbly slope they strode, and reaching the ridge,
decided to pitch their camp at the foot of some pines, on ground
covered with heather; and soon the smoke of their fire was wafted among
the tree-tops.
High was the site on which the brothers camped. Behind a hill they
could see the mansard roof of the rectory, and on the hill itself was
the parish clerk’s red building, the large village, and in a belt of
spruce the grey stone parish church, magnificent, solemn. They saw,
further, a lake dotted with rocks, now streaked by the northeast wind,
which blew gently and swooningly under the clear sky, fanning the lake,
the meadows and forests and the pines on Sonnimäki, at whose foot the
brothers now rested and baked turnips beside a blazing camp-fire.
JUHANI. Now for a real royal meal.
TIMO. A real gentleman’s meal.
JUHANI. Beef from our bags and stewed turnips from the ashes.
They will be ripe this minute.
The wind it blows and the tree-tops sway,
My love’s voice echoes far away ...
What ox-like daftness on our part to sit on the parish clerk’s bench,
a-b-c in hand, sit for two devilish days.
EERO. Ah, but to stand in the corner, that was something
different.
JUHANI. Good, my Eero, my wise Eero, my six-inch Eero, thou
hop-o’-my-thumb.--In the parish clerk’s corner! I’ll teach the little
imp.
AAPO. Keep quiet, you heathens!
TUOMAS. Sit in peace, Juhani, and take no notice of what he
says.
JUHANI. Take thy cap off while eating, thou dwarf.
TUOMAS. Cap off, say I too.
JUHANI. There then. Thou hadst to obey.
SIMEONI. Always nagging, nothing but nagging. God light up
your souls and hearts!
JUHANI. He’s always making trouble.
EERO. It’s I am always in your accursed teeth--‘that midge,
that hop-o’-my-thumb, that little button Eero’. But that’s why I’m
tough.
JUHANI. Thou art a snappy-tongued puppy, as it says in the
song ‘Seven Men Strong’.
EERO. I can bite back and hard.
JUHANI. Thou art full of bile.
AAPO. May I say a word? Eero said something that I believe
has a mite of truth in it. Sec, the bile he sometimes spreads around
him, we ourselves have helped a lot in cooking. But let us remember
that we are all creatures of the same Creator.
TIMO. Quite so. ‘If I have two snouts, one like a boot-tree,
the other like a loaf’, what has that to do with others? I myself have
to carry them. But let’s drop noses and posies, Creators and creations
now. Here, Juhani, here’s a turnip, soft as a toadstool. Seize on
that and never mind that scamp’s remarks. He is young and without
understanding.--Eat, brother mine.
JUHANI. I’ll eat all right.
TIMO. Now we’re like at a wedding on this high, echoing hill.
JUHANI. Like at Heaven’s wedding. But I must say we were
tortured real cruelly down there in Hell a little while ago.
TIMO. ‘Sometimes dashed down, sometimes uplifted’, so it is
with us in this world.
JUHANI. That’s it. What dost thou say, brother Aapo?
AAPO. I have tried my best, but all to no good. Now I too will
let myself go for once and leave the tiller of our lives in fate’s
hand. Here I sit.
JUHANI. Here we sit and there under our feet lies the whole
world. The parish clerk’s house glows there like a red cockerel, and
yonder the spire of God’s temple rises on high.
AAPO. At the foot of that temple we shall sit once in the
black stocks of shame, sit with bent heads, like seven young crows on a
fence, listening to people say, as they point to us: there sit the lazy
Jukola brothers.
JUHANI. The day will never dawn when the sons of Jukola, with
heads bent like young crows on a fence, sit in the black stocks of
shame, listening to people saying, as they point to us: there sit the
lazy Jukola brothers. That day will not dawn; I’d sooner hang myself,
or march to the very end of the world, to the battalion at Heinola to
swing a rifle. ‘What do I care, a scapegrace so young?’ Now, brothers,
now that we have eaten, let’s sing, let’s yell until the heath shakes.
SIMEONI. Let’s bless ourselves and go to sleep.
JUHANI. First a song: ‘What do I care’. Clear thy throat, Timo.
TIMO. I’m ready.
JUHANI. How about Eero-lad? Friends again?
EERO. Friends and brothers.
JUHANI. All’s well then. Screw up thy throat.
EERO. It’s already in tune.
JUHANI. Good! And listen you others to the pines quaking.--Now
boys!
What do I care, a scapegrace so young,
Broad in the shoulder and lusty of lung?
Fra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la-lah!
Away to the ranks of the soldiers so grand
At Heinolatown I am off thro’ the land.
Fra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la-lah!
For bishops and priests I care not a fig,
Soon I’ll be dressed in a hero’s gay rig.
Fra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la-lah!
Swifter my bay horse, for soon we shall crack
An Emperor’s rations, the hardest of tack.
Fra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la-lah!
What do I care, a scapegrace so young,
Broad in the shoulder and lusty of lung?
Fra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la ra-la-lah!
JUHANI. That’s the way! This is the right place for us.
SIMEONI. Less noise, less noise! You’re bawling like a legion
of goblins.--Hush, hush! there are travellers coming.
JUHANI. Travellers! Look closer, and thou wilt see a pack of
gypsies, the ‘Rajamäki Regiment.’
The party which now approached was a certain nomad family whose only
home was a little hut on the clearing on Rajamäki Hill, for which
reason it was known to the world as the Rajamäki Regiment. Its leader
is the Mikko known to all, a short, but nimble man with a black
felt hat on his head. He hawks pitch on his journeys and uses the
gelder’s sharp knife nimbly. He professes also the art of fiddling,
drawing a squeaky music from his dark-red instrument at numerous
dances and bee-parties, where he wets his throat wherever hospitality
is proffered.--His wife Kaisa is a skilful cupper, a snuffy-faced,
irascible old woman. Few are the bath-houses she fails to awaken,
on passing, into a smoking activity, for the cupping of the women
of the neighbourhood. Then Kaisa’s cupping-axe dances, her tongue
works and her snuffy face sweats fearfully, but her bag also swells
visibly.--They have a number of children who follow them in their
wanderings from village to village and from farm to farm. Two of
them already foot it on their own, romp merrily around their parents
along the road, now ahead and now behind, but the three youngest form
the load in the little waggon propelled by the parents, Kaisa always
pulling at the shafts, while Mikko pushes from behind with his staff.
And where the Rajamäki Regiment wanders the din is loud. This was the
noisy party, about which a wag had composed a long mocking ballad,
giving to it the family’s name, that now came along the road below
Sonnimäki Heath, as the brothers, merry as goats, enjoyed their freedom
on the high ridge of the heath.
JUHANI. Hallo-o! Greeting, thou aforementioned regiment,
greeting!
TIMO. ‘Hustotaytill?’ says the Swede.
EERO. ‘Kappusiveye?’ says the Russian.
KAISA. What do you want, you up there?
EERO. The old girl to come and suck a whopping thorn from the
brown thigh of Juhani here.
JUHANI. The old woman to tap and suck while the old man plays,
now wouldn’t that go well together.
MIKKO. I give the devil to you, you Jukola bandits.
EERO. The old man doesn’t want to play. Well then it’s for us
to sing, and a real rousing march.
JUHANI. A rousing march as the Rajamäki Regiment marches past.
Now boys, Timo and Eero!
Now we’re off a-wandering
Round the land and back,
Gelding and a-blood-letting
Hawking pitch so black.
At the shafts with snuffy face
Kaisa you will find;
Mikko, chewing, keeps the pace,
Pushing hard behind.
JUHANI. Just so! This is a real jolly, rollicky bit of a song.
KAISA. I’ll let you know, you devil’s food up there, that we
always walk in honour, but you, you slink round other people’s forests
like robbers and beasts of prey. I cup people, I do, and bring health;
Mikko gelds and makes fat swine, fine bulls and bonny geldings for the
King of Kings to ride on; know that, you devils!
JUHANI. A couple of verse on top of that sermon, boys! Timo
and Eero, my stout lads! All together!
Kaisa smacks her nether lip,
Sets the blood a-running;
Mother Jane in Kaisa’s grip
Tells her tales of cunning.
But yonder on the farmyard side
Why this sudden shrieking?
The boars and geldings try to hide,
The piglets fall a-squeaking.
Why this tumult ’mongst the boars?
What makes the piglets scream?
See: as Mikko farmward soars
His knife is seen to gleam.
JUHANI. Truly a jolly rollicking song. Can that be denied,
Mikko?
MIKKO. Close thy bread-trap and quickly, and know that I am
Master Mikko himself, who nipped the Governor’s stallion over a clean
sheet without spilling a single drop of blood. And for that trick got a
stifficate that the Emperor of Rome couldn’t belittle. That’s the sort
of Mikko I am.
EERO. Oh thou double Boar-gelder Mikko with thy witch of a
wife!
KAISA. See that I don’t turn you all into a pack of wolves, as
my grandfather once did a proud wedding company.
JUHANI. Here I still stand, the same old Juhani Jukola, in my
own breeches, and so with God’s help I hope to stand from now onward
too. Thy witch’s tricks, poor woman, can do no more than they did two
years ago when thou foretoldest the end of the world and made many a
wife beg her husband’s pardon for past scoldings without the slightest
need.
KAISA. Hear what I prophesy now.
EERO. Thou prophesiest and wishest us a hot bath, with thou
thyself to cup us in the neck.
JUHANI. But that’s a vain prophecy and wish. True I do mean to
heat the bath-house when I come home and bathe right heartily, but I’m
in no mind to have the Adam’s pelt opened at my neck.
KAISA. Listen, listen! Fire shall eat up thy bath-house and
thy dwelling too, and in wretched state shalt thou wander forth through
forests, bogs and marshes, seeking shelter for thy perishing body. Ah!
bloodily wilt thou yet fight with men and the beasts of the forest,
after which, puffing like a dying hare, thou wilt lay down thy accursed
head in a bush. Hear me and remember.
JUHANI. To Hell....
TUOMAS. Shut up now, shut up!
SIMEONI. Thou godless man, bewitched!
JUHANI. Go to red-hot Hell! Go to the parish clerk and bewitch
his throat with the everlasting mumps.
EERO. So that he’ll sing like an old long-tusked boar in
Mikko’s hands.
JUHANI. Ay, and go to the Rector, to that hypocritical and
rich, fat and greasy Rector.... What shall we order him! Say, Eero.
EERO. May it happen to him at Bible meeting as it happened to
the publican at Oulu’s gate; may a big cat-pie appear in his sack.
JUHANI. Ay, a Paltamo pasty, with a cat, a hairy, furry cat
inside.
EERO. And let him make a sermon of it next Sunday so full of
wrath and fury that his fatty stomach bursts of a sudden with a loud
bang.
JUHANI. Ay, and then may the Old ’Un take him up on his back
and fly away with him as is the Devil’s way with parsons.
EERO. Let him carry off the rich and mighty Rector for company
to the rich man.
JUHANI. There’s the greeting we bid thee carry to the parish
clerk and the Rector. And if thou dost this, thou canst turn me into a
wolf, if thou likest, as thou hast threatened.
EERO. A wolf so fierce that it eats up the whole Rajamäki
Regiment at one gulp.
JUHANI. Ay! And the bag of horns into the bargain.
EERO. And the pitch-sack for savoury.
JUHANI. Just so, thou son of a hammer.
KAISA. Good! The rector and the parish clerk shall hear your
message, and you will find this soup in your bowls yet, you accursed!
Send ’em a parting greeting with a stone, Mikko; split open their
skulls.
MIKKO. Here’s a good pebble, as though made to order.--Take
that, you squinting goats!--Quick march, Kaisa! now we’re off.
JUHANI. The scoundrel! Threw a stone, and it was a near thing
I didn’t get it on the head.
EERO. Let’s send the ball back.
JUHANI. Make the old fellow’s hat rattle!
TUOMAS. Don’t throw, lad, if thou wouldst spare thy poll.
AAPO. Can’t you see, rascals, that there are children there?
JUHANI. Hold thy stone; they’re galloping off already until
the heath thunders.
SIMEONI. Oh you wicked wretches, you Calmucks and savages!
Even a peaceful traveller can’t pass you in peace. Oh you bandits!
JUHANI. What, I, who wouldn’t hurt a hair of their heads? But
look you, when a man feels real mad and mighty spasms run through his
bonny carcase, he--thou knowest what. Two days and two nights this lad
has been shut up in a tower. But I sent a grand greeting to the parish
clerk to ease my mind a little.
AAPO. And still more foolish ones to the Rector. We shall have
cause to rue these greetings yet.
JUHANI. ‘What do I care, a scapegrace so young’. Life, a young
man’s life, is just like this roaring, echoing heath. Yonder in the
northeast Impivaara’s steep fell shows, and yonder in the northwest the
lake by the village gleams, and I can even see other lakes, there on
the edge of the air as though in eternal distance. I can see the three
lakes of Kolistin there.
It can’t be helped, it can’t be helped,
I’ll jump into the lake;
My sweetheart is so mad to-day
And hisses like a snake.
On the surface of that lake our old parish clerk often sits with a
fishing rod in his hand. Ah! if he only squatted there now and I were
a fierce gust of wind, a raving squall from the southeast. I know well
where I’d charge with a roar, and the parish clerk’s punt would soon be
upset.
SIMEONI. What a sinful wish!
JUHANI. It’s what I’d do; I’d upset the punt so that the water
boiled around him like gruel.
TIMO. To the wolves for their dinner, a man like him!
JUHANI. I’d dash him into a wolf-pit and then walk blissfully
round it.
AAPO. Once the fox, bearing a grudge against the bear, tricked
poor Bruin into a pit. And then he laughed heartily and walked round
the pit, talking mockingly. After that he got on to a wild-cat’s back,
and the wild-cat took him up into a big spruce that grew close by. The
fox then began to sing for joy and to call together the winds from the
four quarters of the earth, commanding them to play the harp of the
spruce to his song. Came the east, west and south winds, and the spruce
roared and crackled loudly. Came the north wind, charging across the
mossy, gloomy forests, screaming and crashing. Then the spruce stormed,
quivered and bowed down deeply, until at last it broke and fell down
over the pit, throwing as it fell the fox into the bear’s arms down in
the pit.
TIMO. The devil! What then?
JUHANI. Thou canst easily guess what happened then. I bet the
bear took a firm hold of the fox by the scruff and shook him until his
teeth rattled, like the kind parish clerk did me.--But I understand
what Aapo means. He wants to remind me that he who digs a pit for
others can fall into it himself. That may be, but I’d like to see the
parish clerk fall into a pit all the same.
TIMO. My heart too wouldn’t be against seeing the parish clerk
stumble into a pit. But I wouldn’t keep the old beggar there too long.
Two hours, only two hours. And may this be enough. Let the parish clerk
live in peace without even falling into the pit of my angry heart. But
one thing surprises me. How can you believe such rubbish about a fox
and a bear? Why, brothers, a fox can’t even talk nonsense, let alone
call together all the four winds. You believe this, but I make it out
a downright lie.
JUHANI. We all know that Timo’s head is not one of the
sharpest in this world.
TIMO. Maybe not. But with this head I walk through the world
as honourably as thou or anyone else, man or woman.
AAPO. Timo doesn’t understand a fable.
JUHANI. Not a bit does the poor boy understand it. But if I
were to explain it to thee? This matter between the bear and the fox is
likely from those times when all the animals and even the trees could
speak, as it says in the Old Testament; and this I heard from our old
blind uncle.
AAPO. Even thou dost not understand a fable and its purpose.
TIMO. And yet ‘the kettle mocks the pot, black in the ribs the
two’.
JUHANI. Art thou trying to be clever, man? Believe me, I thank
God that I am not as stupid as thou, poor Timo.
TIMO. What if thou’rt not? I see no harm in it.
EERO. Do thou, Timo, as the publican once did; only smite thy
breast, and we’ll see which of you marches home the better man.
JUHANI. Ay! did it touch Little-Eero, publican thyself?
EERO. It touched the chief publican, that Little-Zacchaeus on
a sore spot.
JUHANI. I give a fig for thy jests, and lay me down to slumber
sweet. I’ll turn my back on all of you and sleep like an ant’s nest
under the snow.--But God help us! this is an awful place we have
settled in.
AAPO. How so?
JUHANI. Why, there lies that strange, terrifying rock that
always answers so mournfully to the noise of the church bells. And look
at those eyes in it which stare so unwinkingly at us. I’m scared!
Let’s leave this spot in the Lord’s name.
TUOMAS. Let us sit here in peace.
JUHANI. But the forest-spirit is stern and angry here.
AAPO. Only towards those who swear or do other godless deeds.
So take care of thyself. The tale of those images on the rock-side is a
story of far-off days.
LAURI. Wilt thou tell us this tale?
AAPO. Look carefully at the rock first. You’ll see there
something that looks like four shining golden spots. These are the
melting eyes of two lovers, a fair maiden and a gallant youth; you
will see their images graven in the rock. Look at them, with your eyes
half-shut. There they sit, entwined in the most loving embrace. Lower
down, at the young people’s feet, is an old warrior, bowed down and
pierced by a sword.
TIMO. It’s quite as thou sayest.
LAURI. I too believe I can see something of the sort there.
But go on with the tale.
And Aapo told them this tale:
A grand castle once stood somewhere here, and the lord of this castle
was a rich and mighty man. He had a stepdaughter, a motherless girl,
sweet and fair as the morn. A youth loved the maiden, but the castle’s
terrible master, in whose heart love had never found room, hated both
the youth and the maiden. The girl too loved the noble youth, and they
would often meet on this echoing heath. And it was just the foot of
this rock that was their trysting-place. But the father found out the
young people’s secret and once uttered a fearful vow in the maiden’s
ear. ‘Daughter’, he said, ‘see that I don’t catch you two embracing in
the forest’s night. Know that my sword will then be swift to wed you in
bloody death. This I promise and swear by all that is holy’. This he
said, and fear gripped the maiden as she heard the vow. Nevertheless,
she forgot not the friend of her heart, and the flame of her love only
burned the brighter.
It was a calm summer night. In the maiden’s breast a feeling awoke
that the youth was pacing on the heath, awaiting his own true love.
So at last, when she believed everyone in the castle was asleep, she
set forth, wrapped in a big, finely-woven shawl; set forth on her
love-adventure, and creeping out like a shadow, was soon lost to view
in the forest, and a blue shawl flickered once in a dewy thicket. But
everyone in the castle was not asleep; there against a window stood the
master of the castle himself, spying on the maiden, who like a ghost
of night faded from his view. Whereupon he girt on his sword, seized a
spear, and hastening after the maiden was also soon lost to sight among
the trees. A blood-thirsty beast hunting a mild-eyed lamb.
Up towards the heath hurried the panting maiden and there met her
friend, at the grey rock’s base. There they stood, lovingly embracing
each other and whispering the language of love in a blissful hour. They
stood no longer on the face of this earth; their spirits wandered in
Heaven’s flowery meadows.--So passed a few short moments; then all of a
sudden the terrible lord dashed forth and thrust his sharp spear in the
maiden’s left side with such force that its point came out of the young
man’s right, thus joining them together in death. They drooped towards
the rock, and their blood gushed forth in a single stream, dyeing the
cheeks of the heather-blossoms. There, united in bonds of steel, they
sat on their rocky throne, silent, yet all the time lovingly embracing
each other. And ravishingly, like four golden stars, their eyes shone
upon the castle’s mighty master, who looked in wonder upon this
strange calm picture in the very jaws of death. Suddenly a thunderstorm
arose, the heavens flashed and rumbled, but in the lightning’s bluish
glare the young people’s eyes still shone blissfully, as four candles
might burn in the holy air of Heaven. Upon all this the murderer
looked while the wrath on high raged around and above him. Powerfully
the beautifully fading eyes of the lovers spoke to his soul, equally
powerfully the foaming torrent of their blood and the crashing sky.
And for the first time his mind was touched, as with cold and black
regret in his heart he gazed upon the wondrous eyes of the dying, which
smiled without cease at him. His heart knew fear and he trembled as the
lightning flashed and eternity thundered, and spirits of dread gathered
all around him. A boundless fury seized his soul.
Once more he looked upon the youthful lovers: and still the same
shining eyes, though dimmer now, looked smiling back at him. Then,
folding his arms across his breast, he began, with frozen glance,
staring eastward; and thus he stood for long, dumb in the gloomy
night. But at last and suddenly he lifted his breast high and shouted
a long shout, long and terrifically loud, a shout that echoed roaring
through the neighbourhood. Then for a space he was silent again, while
he listened carefully, until the last echo of his cry had sunk into
the bosom of the farthest hill. And when this had come to pass, he
shouted terrifically again, still staring towards the east, and the
forest heard the echoes for long, while he closely followed their
passage from hill to hill. But at last the distant trembling voice died
down, the lightning rested, and the shining eyes were extinguished;
and only a heavy rain sighed in the forest. Then suddenly, as though
awakening from a dream, the castle’s master snatched the sword from
his scabbard, pierced his breast with it, and fell at the lovers’ feet.
And once more the heavens flashed, flashed and thundered; but silence
soon reigned everywhere again.
Morning came, and the dead were found on the heath at the foot of a
grey rock; they were borne away and room was made for them side by side
in the same grave. But afterwards their images were seen in the rock;
one saw a youth and a maiden, embracing each other, and under them, on
his knees, a grim, bearded warrior. And four marvellous studs, like
four golden stars, shone in the rock by night and by day, reminding
men of the rapture in the fainting eyes of the lovers. And it was a
thunderbolt, so runs the tale, that in its flight inscribed these
images in the rock. And like in this picture, the youth and maiden
sit in happiness on a throne on high; and like the warrior is seen
cowering there, so must he cower on a bed of punishment in parching
air. Whenever the church bells ring, he bends his ear carefully to
catch the sound, listening to the echo given out by the rock; but up to
now its sound has been mournful. Once, however, a wondrously gentle and
joyous sound will issue from the rock, and then the hour of the man’s
atonement and forgiveness will have come, but the day of all the world
will also then be nigh. And that’s why people always listen with such
unrest to the echo from this rock when the church-bells ring. Gladly
would they welcome the dawn of the man’s day of release, but remember
with terror that the end of the world will then have come.
This tale Aapo told to his brothers on Sonnimäki Heath.
TIMO. The old boy has to sweat. Right to the Day of Judgment!
Oho!
SIMEONI. Thou dolt, see that the trumpet of judgment doesn’t
bray this very minute.
EERO. No fear of the world ending so long as there are
heathens on the face of the earth. Why, God ha’ mercy! here are seven
benighted heathens right in the midst of Christendom. There’s nothing
so bad but that there’s something good in it. We are pillars of this
world, we are.
JUHANI. Thou a pillar of the world? Six-inch!
SIMEONI. Thou’lt tremble, Eero, tremble like the Devil, when
the day approaches which thou now mockest.
TIMO. That he won’t; I’ll stand for that. Oho! there’ll be a
din and commotion then. Two commotions have been already, the third is
still to come. And then the great sign of bliss will appear; then the
world’ll fall to dust and ashes like an old birch-bark slipper. Then
the cattle in the clearings will bellow and the pigs squeak fearfully
in the lanes, that is, if this ruin comes upon us in summer-time; but
if it comes in winter, then the cattle will go mad and bellow in the
sheds and the poor pigs squeal in their styes. There’ll be a row then,
boys. Oho! Two commotions have been, the third is still to come, or so
our blind uncle said.
SIMEONI. Ay, ay, let us remember that day.
JUHANI. Shut up, will you, brothers. God preserve us! You
quite turn a man’s heart inside-out with such talk. Let’s go to sleep,
let’s go to sleep.
So they conversed, but at last their conversation died down, and sleep
overcame them, one after the other. Last of all Simeoni sat awake,
leaning against the bulging root of a pine. He sat and pondered gravely
over those final moments of the world and the great day of judgment.
His eyes burned with a reddish, moist, mild fire, while the ruddy flush
of his coarse cheek shone afar. But at last he too slept. And so they
all lay sleeping beside their campfire, which blazed for a while, then
sank gradually and was extinguished.
The day declined and twilight deepened into night. The air was
muggy and hot; an occasional flash lit up the northeast as an angry
thunderstorm climbed up the sky. With the speed of an eagle it drew
near to the village, casting down fire from its womb, until it
suddenly set ablaze the rector’s barn, which, being full of dry straw,
soon burst into mighty flames. The bells began to clamour and the
village awoke into activity; people hurried everywhere to the fire,
a stream of men and women, but in vain. Luridly the barn blazed, and
blood-red shone the bowl of the sky. But the storm now hastened towards
Sonnimäki, where the brothers slept sweetly, the heath resounding with
their snores. A terrible crash is now to awaken them, in a terror
greater than any they have known in their lives. Their dream-delirious
minds will stand aghast when, with all nature raging around them in the
cheerless night, the gloomy tale and the accounts of the end of the
world recur to them. And all the light they will see in the night will
be the flashing of thunderclouds and the reflection of the fire in the
village.
The flash came, and on its heels followed a burst of thunder so loud
that it instantly woke up the sleeping brothers. Shouting loudly in
shrill voices, they sprang up from the ground as one man, and with the
hair standing upright on their heads like rustling reeds and eyes like
rings in their heads, they stared at each other for a moment or two.
SIMEONI. The Day of Judgment!
JUHANI. Where are we, where are we?
SIMEONI. Are we going already?
JUHANI. Save us, mercy!
AAPO. Terrible, terrible!
TUOMAS. Indeed terrible.
TIMO. The Lord preserve us poor lads!
SIMEONI. How the bells are ringing!
JUHANI. And the rock jangles and dances! Hii! Ha!
SIMEONI. ‘The bells of Heaven are ringing!’
JUHANI. ‘And strength forsakes my limbs!’
SIMEONI. Is this how we go?
JUHANI. Help us, Mild and Merciful!
AAPO. Oh terror!
JUHANI. Tuomas, Tuomas, grab hold of the tail of my coat. Hii!
Ha!
SIMEONI. Hii! Haa! Now we’re off, we’re off!
JUHANI. Tuomas, my brother in Christ!
TUOMAS. Here I am. What dost thou want?
JUHANI. Pray!
TUOMAS. Ay, try to pray now.
JUHANI. Pray, Timo, if thou canst!
TIMO. I’ll try.
JUHANI. Do it soon!
TIMO. O Lord, O sorrow great, O merciful throne of Bethlehem!
JUHANI. What does Lauri say?
LAURI. I don’t know what to say in this misery.
JUHANI. Ay, misery, bottomless misery! But I’m beginning to
think the end is not just yet.
SIMEONI. Oh if we were granted even a single day!
JUHANI. Or a week, a precious week! But what are we to make of
this ghastly light and the clatter of bells?
AAPO. There’s a fire in the village, good people.
JUHANI. Ay, Aapo, and that’s the warning bell ringing.
EERO. The rectory barn’s afire.
JUHANI. A thousand barns can burn down as long as this
wretched world still stands and we seven of its sinful children on it.
Lord help us! My whole body’s swimming in a stream of cold sweat.
TIMO. I won’t say my own trousers aren’t shaking.
JUHANI. A matchless moment!
SIMEONI. So God punishes us for our sins.
JUHANI. True! Why did we sing that nasty song about the
Rajamäki Regiment.
SIMEONI. You mocked shamelessly at Mikko and Kaisa.
JUHANI. Why say it! But God bless them! God bless us all,
every one, even the parish clerk.
SIMEONI. That prayer found favour in Heaven.
JUHANI. Let us leave this dreadful place. The fire shows
here like the fiery furnace of the damned, and there those eyes shine
so mournfully at us from the rock-side. Know that it was Aapo’s tale
of those cat’s-eyes that caused this shaking in our backbones. Let’s
be off, and don’t any of you forget your bags and a-b-c books. Away
brothers! Let’s march to Tammisto to see Kyösti; to Kyösti’s with God’s
help, and then home tomorrow, if we’re still alive.
LAURI. We’ll soon have the rain pouring down our necks and
will be wet as rats.
JUHANI. Let it rain, let it rain! We were still spared. Come
on now!
Marching quickly in a row, they hurried off and soon came to the sandy
road, where they turned off towards Tammisto Farm. To the flashing
of fire and the roll of thunder they marched on for a while, until a
streaming rain began to pour over them. At that they increased their
pace to a run until they arrived at the ‘Kulomäki spruce’, a tree
famous for its height and the denseness of its branches, which stood by
the roadside, a shelter for many a wanderer in the rain. At the foot
of this spruce the brothers sat until the rain abated, and the great
spruce roared above them. But when the weather lifted, they continued
their journey. And nature grew calm again, the wind died, the clouds
fled and the moon rose palely out of the tree-tops. Leisurely and
without a care the brothers then strode along the wet road.
TUOMAS. I’ve often wondered where the thunder comes from and
what it can be, those flashes and that noise.
AAPO. Our blind uncle told us this mutiny in the heavens comes
when dry sand gets borne by the wind between masses of cloud.
TUOMAS. Would it be that?
JUHANI. A child’s mind can fancy anything. How was it I, a
little brat in my shift, pictured the thunder? It was God driving
rattling along the streets of Heaven, and fire flashed from the stony
road and the iron rim of his wheels. Ha-ha! A child has a child’s mind.
TIMO. What about me! I too imagined something of the sort
when as a tiny imp I toddled along the lane while the thunder rumbled,
toddled there with a little bit of a shirt on me. God’s ploughing his
field, thinks I, and cracking his ox-tail whip and each swipe makes the
round flanks of his fat bay strike sparks, as we see the sparks fly
from a horse’s croup when we wipe it down. Ay, childish ideas.
SIMEONI. I thought as a child and still think: the heavens’
flash and thunder proclaim God’s wrath at the sinners on earth; for the
sins of men are great, countless as the sands of the sea.
JUHANI. Sins are committed down here, that can’t be denied,
but a sinner is well boiled down here too in salt and pepper. Think, my
boy, of our trip to school and what we had to bear there. The parish
clerk scratched and shook us like a hawk; I feel it yet and grind my
teeth, my boy.
The road ended and Tammisto Farm drew nigh, and the brothers gravely
entered and were given comfortable beds by Kyösti. This Kyösti, a man
sturdy as an oak, was the only son of the house, but had never cared
to take over the management of the farm, preferring to be alone, to
follow his own bent. At one time he had wandered as in a fever through
the villages, preaching and shouting; and it was said that much
thinking about religion had brought him to this pass. And when at last
he had awakened from his state, he was otherwise the same as before,
but he never smiled again. And one curious thing came to pass, that
ever afterwards he regarded the Jukola brothers as his best friends,
though he had hardly known them before. This was the man with whom the
brothers sought shelter for the night.