stood looking round for a while and then, ashamed of herself, went
indoors again. Quite against her habit, she now made use of her glass: in
the middle of her work, she went to see if the two glossy black tresses
lay neatly on her forehead and if the ribbons of her cap were properly
tied and fastened. She put on her clothes more carefully and folded and
refolded her kerchief till it enclosed her body in a pretty shape. From
before the moment of starting for church, her heart began to beat; she
shut her garden-gate more noisily and stepped loudly along the pavement
until she came to the smith’s first window, firmly resolved this time at
least to look up and say good-morning; but she always met some one who
noticed her; and she was in church by the time that, with a sigh, she had
put off her intention until next day.
At night, in bed, she lay thinking over all these little events; and it
was a glad day or a sad day for her according as she had more or less
often caught sight of the little smith.
One evening, after benediction, she saw him come walking under the trees
of 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 it
would lead to nothing. He had just looked round before she came up to him
and then he sat down on the stone step before the Calvary, as though he
wanted to chat with her there at his ease:
“Good-evening, Sofie,” he said, with a smile. “Have you been to say your
prayers. Don’t you ever say a little one for me? I want it so badly: my
soul’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 sat
smirking to see what she would say. There was nothing that she longed for
more 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 a
cordial “Good-evening,” went home well pleased with themselves.
For her it was an endless day; all the time she stood considering what
she should say to him. He was coming and would sit smoking there again
behind the stove. Already she heard his pleasant, whispering talk and saw
his kind, upturned glance. She moved about restlessly to set everything
in order. The shutters were closed quite early and the lamp burning. Now
she went and had one more look outside and it was pitch-dark, with never
a moon. On the stroke of eight, the door opened: he was there, with his
Sunday jacket on, his red scarf and his leather shoes. She was most
friendly, 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 who
were married, sick or dead. She made coffee, turned up the lamp and
opened her bedroom door to give an outlet to the tobacco-smoke. Straight
opposite 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 hanging
in folds, set off with a white ball-fringe; also a praying-desk with
velvet cushions, above which was an image of the Sacred Heart, with gold
flowers, and, hanging from a brass chain, a perpetual light glimmering in
a little red glass; and, all around, on the white walls, little statues
and 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 sat
close to him to teach him how to say it:
“Here, at the little cross, the I Believe in God the Father; then, at
each 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 taught
him. Her eyes shone with happiness. Now the talk went easily on church
matters and all the things of her pious little life; she showed him the
pictures in her prayer-book, explained all the attributes of the saints
and told long stories of their lives and martyrdoms.
He, also, told her of his youth, when he made his first communion and was
the best little man in the whole village. It was striking ten when he
went 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 no
one in the street and then cautiously crept in through her gate. He
brought her old books from his loft; and, while he smoked his pipe, she
lit the candle before the statue of Our Lady and started talking, very
gently, so as not to be heard outside. She read whole chapters out of
Thomas à Kempis and _The Pious Pilgrim_, _The Dove amongst the Rocks_,
_The Spiritual Bridegroom_, or _The Sacred Meditations_. They sat there
for 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, she
carefully let him out. She thanked Our Lord for making her so happy and
often prayed that it might last and she win the smith’s soul for Heaven
and that their doing might all the same be kept hidden from wicked
people.
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, to
settle their yearly reckoning at the smith’s. At noon there was a big
dinner at the inn. They ate much and drank more; and, from afternoon till
late in the evening, the smiths’ men and the peasants loafed along the
streets and sang ribald songs. The steadiest of them walked about
talking, from one tavern to the other. They were nearly all drunk. She
sat peeping at it from behind her curtain and was vexed at all this
wantonness and rather glad that she had not yet seen “him” anywhere. She
said her evening prayers and was just going to bed when she heard the
door open and the smith stepped in.
He carried his pipe upside down in his mouth, his eyes looked wild and
his speech was incoherent. She had never seen him like that; and she was
frightened at his strange gestures. She wanted him to sit down, but he
came up to her with his arms open, as if to catch hold of her. She
stepped back in affright, pushed him away from her. His breath stank of
drink 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 would
know.... But his eyes looked at her roguishly and, with bent head and
outstretched 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 was
quite dark.
“Sander! Sander! What do you want? Heavens! He’s drunk! And I’m here all
alone! Lord God, St. Catherine, help!”
He still spoke not a word, but uttered ugly growls; and she heard his
hands rub and grope along the wall, against herself. She pulled open the
door of her bedroom and fled up the stairs and fell in a heap in the
corner beside her bed. There she sat waiting, out of breath.... Yes, his
heavy shoes had found the steps; and, still growling, he entered the
room. He felt the bed, lay down flat on his stomach and reached out with
his arms; then he found her sitting sighing. She felt those two weedy
arms grasp her and was caught in them as in an iron band. She moaned and
screamed for help. His dirty, slimy mouth pressed her lips ... and then
she felt herself sink away, out of the world. The people who heard the
cries came to see what was the matter. They hauled the drunkard outside
and laid her on the bed. When they saw that she was better, they went
away 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 stormy
thoughts, came to understand what had happened: all her misfortune, which
yawned before her like a deep, black well. She was ashamed, disgusted
with 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 was
done past recall: she was punished for her trustfulness ... and those
same kind eyes and that friendly face; only yesterday, they had said
their evening prayers together and so devoutly! Oh, ‘twas such a pity!
And what would people say?... And the priest?... And Our Lord and all His
dear saints?... She fell into ever-deepening despair and saw never a way
out. Very far away shone her pure little life of former days, her white
and peaceful little soul floating in that unruffled blue sanctity, in
that fragrant twilight of evening after evening ... and all this he had
now 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. In
her wretchedness, she was left stark alone, abandoned like a poor babe in
the snow. She plunged her face into the white sheets and cried. She would
have liked to pine away there, in that kindly darkness, and never, never
to see daylight again.
XI. THE END
Zeen pulled up his bent back, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his
bare 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 the
corn. With short, even strokes, with a swing of his arm, the sickle rose
and, with a “d-zin-n-n” fell at the foot of the cornstalks and brought
them down in great armfuls. Then they were hooked away and dragged back
in little even heaps, ready to be bound up.
It did not last long: he stopped again, looked round over all that power
of corn which still had to be cut and beyond, over that swarming plain,
which lay scorching, so hugely far, under that merciless sun. He saw
Zalia look askant because he did not go on working and, to account for
his resting, drew his whetstone from his trouser-pocket and began slowly
to 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 if
he would tumble head foremost into the corn. Zalia heard his breath come
short and fast; she looked at him and asked what was the matter. His arms
dropped 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 my
eyes 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 a
sip down his throat and stood looking to see how it worked:
“Well?”
Zeen did not answer, but stood there shivering and staring, with his eyes
fixed on a bluebonnet in the cut corn.
“Come, come, Zeen, get it done! Have just another try: it’ll get cooler
directly and we’ll be finished before dark.”
“Oh, Zalia, it’s so awfully hot here and it’ll be long before it’s
evening!”
“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 ought
to go home.”
Zalia did not know what to do: she was frightened and did not understand
his 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. She
saw him go slowly, the poor old soul, lurching like a drunken man, and
disappear behind the trees. Then she took her straw-band and bundled up
all the little heaps of corn, one after the other, and bound them into
sheaves. She next took the sickle and the hook and just went cutting away
like a man: stubbornly, steadily, with a frenzied determination to get it
done. 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 hat
from over her eyes to see how much was left standing and then went on
cutting, on and on. She panted in the doing of it.... She was there
alone, on that outstretched field, in that heat which weighed upon her
like a heavy load; it was stifling. She heard no sound besides the swish
of 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 and
got new strength.
The sun was low in the sky when she stood there alone on the smooth
field, with all the corn lying flat at her feet. Then she started
binding.
The air grew cooler. When the last sheaf was fastened in its straw-band
and they now stood set up in heavy stooks, like black giants in straight
rows, it began to grow dark. She wiped the sweat from her face, slipped
on her blue striped jacket, put the bottle in her hat, took the sickle
and hook on her shoulder and, before going, stood for a while looking at
her 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 lay
so flat and, far away over there, the trees stood black and that mill and
the fellow walking there: all as though drawn with ink on the sky. It
seemed to her as if the summer was now past and that heavy sultriness was
a 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 back
without him. It was all so dreary, so dim and deadly, so awful. Along the
edge of the deep sunken path the grasshoppers chirped here and there, all
around her: an endless chirping on every side, all over the grass and the
field; and it went like a gentle woof of voices softly singing. This
singing at last began to chatter in her ears and it became a whining
rustle, a deafening tumult and a painful laughter. From behind the
pollard her cat jumped on to the path: it had come to the field to meet
her and, purring cosily, was now arching its back and loitering between
Zalia’s legs until she stroked it; then it ran home before her with great
bounds. The goat, hearing steps approach, put its head over the
stable-door and began to bleat.
The house-door was open; as she went in, Zalia saw not a thing before her
eyes, but she heard something creaking on the floor. It was Zeen, trying
to 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 on
the 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 hearth
for the tinder-box; she struck fire and lit up.
Zeen looked pale, yellow, deathlike. Zalia was startled by it, but, to
comfort 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 drops
into 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 and
I’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 fetch
in the corn.”
“Is it cut?”
“All done and stooked; if it keeps fine to-morrow, we’ll get it all into
the barn.”
Zalia lifted him under his armpits and they crawled on like that into the
other room, where the loom stood with the bed behind it. She helped him
take off his jacket and trousers and put him to bed, tucked him nicely
under 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 the
goat’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 of
water from outside, gave him a bowl to drink.
Then she went back to her peeling. A bit later, she sat thinking of other
remedies--limeflowers, sunflower-seeds, pearl barley, flowers of
sulphur--when suddenly she saw Mite Kornelje go by. She ran out and
called:
“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’s
complaining of pains in his side and in his stomach; he’s very pale: you
wouldn’t know him.”
They went indoors. Zalia took the lamp and both passed in, between the
loom and the wall by Zeen’s bed.
He lay staring at the ceiling and catching his breath. Mite stood looking
at 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 English
salt.”
And she climbed on to a chair and took from the plank above the bed a
dusty 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 ... but
no 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 away
the 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, who
had heard the news, also came to see how Zeen was getting on. Mite
stirred a handful of the salt in a bowl of water and they all four went
to the sick man’s bed. Zeen swallowed the draught without blinking. Mite
knew 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 tongue
and felt his pulse, cried out at his gasping for breath and his pale
colour and his dilated pupils and his burning fever. Zeen did not stir
and 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. Zalia
hung the kettle with water on the hook and made coffee; and the four
women sat round the table telling one another stories of illness. In the
other room there was no sound.
A bit later, Mite’s little girl came to see where mother was all this
time. 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 dark
like 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’t
you, Fietje? And say that mother is going to stay here because Zeen is
dying.”
Fietje went off. The coffee was ready and when they had gulped down their
first bowl, they went to have another look in the room where the sick man
lay.
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 over
the fire.
Then she went to milk the goat and take it its food. It was bright as day
outside and quiet, so very quiet, with still some of the heat of the sun
lingering in the air, which weighed sultrily. She crept into the dark
goat-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 came
clattering in turns into the little pail.
People came: Treze and Mite’s little girl, with a lantern, and Barbara
Dekkers, 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 three
women 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 and
hung 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 she
and 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 a
black 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 shoulder
by 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 a
pipe and tobacco from under his blue smock and sat looking at the rings
of 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 all
went to look. Warten stayed behind, smoking.
Zeen lay there, on a poverty-stricken little bed, low down near the
ground, behind the loom, huddled deep on his bolster under a dirty
blanket: a thin little black chap, leaning against a pillow in the
dancing twilight of the lantern. His eyes were closed and his bony face
half-hidden in the blue night-cap. His breath rustled; and each puff from
his hoarse throat, blowing out the thin flesh of his cheeks, escaped
through a little opening on one side of his sunken lips, which each time
opened 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 make
him look up. “Zeen! Zeen! It’s I: don’t you know Mite?”
“Oof!” sighed Zeen; and his head dropped down again without his eyes
opening.
“He’s got the fever,” said Barbara. “Just feel how his forehead’s burning
and he’s as hot as fire.”
“Haven’t you poulticed him?” asked Stanse. “He wants poultices on his
feet: 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’s
spluttering, 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 the
regular, jogging drag of the sieve over the boarded ceiling and the fine
meal-dust snowed down through the cracks, whirling round the lamp, and
fell on Zeen’s bed and on the women standing round.
Zeen nodded his head. They held a bowl of milk to his mouth; two little
white streaks ran down from the corners of his mouth into his
shirt-collar.
The sieve went on dragging. The women looked at Zeen, then at one another
and then at the lantern. In the kitchen, the kettle sang drearily....
Warten came down from the loft with half a pailful of bran. Barbara
poured the steaming water on it and flung in a handful of salt.
They took the clothes off the bed and pulled his feet into the
bran-water. Zeen groaned; he opened his eyes wide and looked round wildly
at all those people.
He hung there for a very long time, with his lean black legs out of the
bed and the bony knees and shrunk thighs in the insipid, sickly-smelling
steam of the bran-water. Then they lifted him out and stuck his wet feet
under the bedclothes again. Zeen did not stir, but just lay with the
rattle 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.”