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The Path of Life

S >> Stijn Streuvels >> The Path of Life




"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 others
after 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 water
on his back, where his underclothes were smouldering.

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

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

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

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

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

It was as if their fright had made them forget what was happening
indoors: 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 she
snatched down two or three linen bags which hung from the rafters and
carried them outside.

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

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

"And the children! The children who are not here!" moaned Zalia. "He
ought 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 of
God: 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 to
this world, he may live to Thee; and whatever sins he has committed in
this 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 and
went home, praying as she went.

Zalia made the sign of the Cross and closed her husband's eyes; then she
laid a white towel on a little table by the bed and put the candle on it
and 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 and
his 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 a
crucifix and rosary for his hands.

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

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

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

"It's only," said Mite, "that it'll be light early to-morrow and we've
had 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! They
ought to have seen their father die!... The poor children, they'll cry
so!"

"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 in
their letters, behind the glass."

"Give 'em to me," said Treze. "I'll make my boy write to-morrow, before
he 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? And
to the carpenter? And my harvest, my harvest! Yes, yes, Warten, do you
get into the goat-house and help me a bit to-morrow. I shall sleep: why
not?"

"_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 shoes
clattered softly in the powdery sand of the white road; when they had
gone very far, their voices still rang loud and their figures looked like
wandering pollards.

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

"Fine weather to-morrow," said Warten; and he trudged off to his
goat-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 the
musty odour of the corpse. She put out the fire in the hearth, dipped her
fingers once more in the holy water and made a cross over Zeen. While her
lips muttered the evening prayers, she took off her kerchief, her jacket
and her cap and let fall her skirt. Then she straddled across Zeen and
lay right against the wall. She twisted her feet in her shift and crept
carefully under the bed-clothes. She shuddered. Her thoughts turned like
the wind: her daughters were in service in France and were now sleeping
quietly and knew of nothing; her eldest, who was married, and her husband
and the children came only once a year to see their father; and even
then.... And now they would find him dead.

Her harvest ... and she was alone now, to get it in. Warten would go to
the priest early in the morning and to the carpenter: the priest ought to
have been here, 'twas a comfort after all; but Zeen had always been good
and ... 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 that
reaping; and it was so warm here, so stifling and it smelt queer: what a
being could come to, when he was dead!

Had she slept at all? She had been lying there so long ... and there was
that smell! She wished she had sent Warten away and gone herself to lie
in the goat-house; here, beside that corpse ... but, after all, it was
Zeen....

The flame of the candle flickered and everything flickered with it--the
loom, the black rafters and the crucifix--in dark shadow-stripes upon the
wall. '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 she
carefully 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; and
the corpse shook and the stomach rumbled. She held herself tucked against
the wall, twisted and turned, pinched her eyes to, but did not sleep. The
smell got into her nose and throat and it became very irksome,
unbearable. And she got out of bed again, to open the window. A fresh
breeze 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 the
whistling of a sad, drawling street-ditty:

"They're at work already."

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

The funeral would be the day after to-morrow: already she saw all the
troop passing along the road and then in the church and then ... all
alone, home again. Zeen was dead now and she remained ... and all those
children, her children, who still had so long to live, would also grow
old, in their turn, and die ... ever on ... and all that misery and
slaving and then to go ... and Zeen, her Zeen, the Zeen of yesterday, who
was still alive then and not ill. Her Zeen; and she saw him as a young
man over forty years ago: a handsome chap he was. She had lived so long
with Zeen and had known him so well, better than her own self; and that
he 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.

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