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The Path of Life

S >> Stijn Streuvels >> The Path of Life




"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 a
worthy dwelling-place for thy Divine Son."

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

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

The blue velvety canopy was stretched on high, studded with twinkling
stars; and all about the country-side the trees stood white. On the
winding paths, among the pinks, anemones, guelder-roses and
jasmine-bushes, walked stately white figures in trailing garments, with
wreaths of white roses and yellow flowers gleaming on their golden
tresses, which they shook out over their white shoulders. All the world
was one pure vista full of blue, curling mist and fresh, untasted
fragrance. A soft melody of dreamy song was wafted through the air. And
Horieneke saw herself also playing in that great garden, an angel among
angels. Ropes hung stretched from tree to tree; and they swung upon them
and rocked with streaming hair and fluttering garments, floating high
above 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 lilies
and violets: a song of unheard sweetness. Not one spoke of leaving off or
going home; they only wished to stay like that, without rain or darkness;
there was a continual happy frolic, a glad gaiety, in those spacious
halls where, in spite of the singing and the music, all things were yet
so deliciously, languidly still, still as the moonlight.

Yonder, by the dark wood, the steady swish of a sickle was heard; and
this made a fearsome noise in the tenuous night. A gigantic man stood
there; his head looked over the trees and his wide-stretched arms swung
the sickle and a pick-hook; and, stroke by stroke, the foliage and the
flowers fell beneath his hands as he passed. The singing gradually
ceased, the swings fell slack and the frolic changed into an anxious
waiting, as before thunder. One and all stood in terror and dismay
staring at that giant approaching. The blue of the sky darkened and the
angels vanished, like lamps that were blown out. The flowers were faded
and the whole plain lay mown flat, like a stricken wilderness; and that
fellow with his sickle, who now drew himself up to contemplate his
finished work, was ... her father!

She started awake and trembled with fright. It had been so beautiful that
she sighed at the thought of it; and outside was the twilight of
advancing dawn. It was daylight! Sunday! She jumped out of bed in a flash
and pulled open the window. The trees were there still and the flowers
too and all the white of last night, but so pale, dim and colourless
beside 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 the
east a long thin cleft had been torn in the grey; and behind that, deep
down, was a dull-golden glow, gleaming like a great brazen serpent. A
keen wind shook the cherry-blossom and blew a cold, fragrant air into the
window. All the green distance lay dead as yet, half-hidden, asleep in
the morning mist; and neither man nor beast was visible, nor even a
wreath of smoke from a chimney.

What was the time? She threw a wrap over her shoulders, which were
getting chilled, and went carefully down the bedroom steps. It was still
dark in the kitchen. She groped, found and lit a sulphur match and lifted
the flame to the clock. Four! She was so much used to seeing the hands in
that position in the afternoon and they now looked so silly that she
stood for a long time thinking, foolishly, what she ought to do: call
mother or creep back into bed and sleep. She felt so uncomfortably cold
and 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 yawned
wider and wider. Was it going to be a fine day after all? Everything for
which she had waited so long was there now and so strange, so totally
different from what she had imagined: instead of that leaping gladness
there was something like fear and nervous trembling; she could have wept;
and, merely for the sake of doing something, she went down on her knees
beside 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 dwelling
in 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, her
wreath, her prayer-book: it was all ready; if only somebody would wake!
Dared she call? They lay sleeping side by side: father was snoring, with
his mouth open, and mother's fat stomach and breasts rose and fell
steadily.

"Mother!"

Nobody heard.

"Mother!!"

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

"Mother! Mother!! Mother!!!"

That was better. Mother turned on her side, lifted her head and rubbed
her 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 her
fat hips, with an open slit behind, and her loose jacket and wooden shoes
on. She lit the stove. Horieneke read her morning prayers. Mother's heavy
shoes clattered over the floor outside and in again; she put on and took
off the iron pots with the goats' food, drew fresh water and made the
coffee.

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 day
to-day."

She took off her hooded cloak, put on a clean apron and turned up her
sleeves. Horieneke was washed all over again while mother poured out the
coffee. Then they sat down. Horieneke kept her lips tight-closed so as
not to forget that she must remain fasting. She slowly pulled on her new
stockings and stretched out her hand to the bench on which the white
slippers lay. She took off her sleeping-jacket and her little skirt and
stood waiting in her shift. When the tongs were well warmed, Mam'selle
Julie 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 out
and bound up with blue-silk ribbon, it all stood about her head in a
light mist of pale-gold silk, like a wreath of light around her bright,
fresh face. Her dirty shift was dragged off downwards and mother fetched
the new scapular and laid it over the child's bare shoulders. The
first-communion chemise was of fine white linen and trimmed with crochet
lace. Julie took out the folds and drew it over Horieneke's head. Then
came white petticoats, bodices and skirts. The child stood passively, in
the middle of the floor, with her arms wide apart to give free room to
Julie, who crept round on her knees, sticking in a pin here, smoothing a
crease there. Mother fetched the things as they were wanted. There was a
constant discussing, approving, asking if it wouldn't meet or if it hung
too wide, all in a whisper, so as not to wake the boys.

There came a scrabbling overhead and down the stairs; and, before any one
suspected 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 the
stairs after the boy, who in three jumps was gone and up above. The
others lay laughing in bed when Bertje told them that he had seen
Horieneke 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 her
breath to let them get her body tighter. Now for the white frock: the
skirt was slipped down over her head until it stood out in light, stiff
pleats; the white bodice encased her body firmly and stuck out above the
shoulders, its puffed sleeves trimmed with little white-satin bows and
ribbons at every seam and fold. Over it hung the veil, which shrouded her
as in a white cloud. The wreath was put on, looked at from a distance and
put on again until it was right at last, with the glittering beads in
front, shining among the auburn curls, and the long streamer of threaded
lilies of the valley behind, nestling in the tresses on her back. The
white gloves, her prayer-book and candle-cloth, a few pennies in her bead
purse; 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 of
yesterday, in her blue bird's-eye bib and black frock was a poor thing
compared with the present Horieneke, something far removed from this
white apparition, something quite forgotten. She stood stiff as a post in
the middle of the kitchen, without daring to look round or stir; she felt
so light and airy in those rustling folds and pleats and all that muslin
that she seemed not to touch the ground. She did not know what to do with
her arms, how to tread with her feet; and her thoughts were straying: the
part she had to play was all gone out of her head; she would be as fine
as 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 of
you!"

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

The sky still hung grey with its yawning cleft widening in the east; and
out of it there beamed a sober, uncertain light, which fell upon
everything with a dead gleam: it was like noonday in winter. Over the
fields and in the trees drifted thin wisps of mist, like floating blue
veils blown on by the wind. Below in the meadow the cock had started
crowing 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 the
flat fields, came people in their very best, with little white maids. The
wind played in their white veils and set them waving and flapping like
wet flags.

"The children'll have good weather," said Mam'selle Julie; and, a little
later, 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.... For
father and mother and all the family and that I may always be a good girl
and stay at home with them and not fall among wicked people and that we
may all live a long time and go to Heaven...."

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

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

The procession filed out: first the acolytes, in scarlet, with gleaming
crucifix, brass candle-sticks and censer, followed by boys and girls
symbolically dressed, a lilting dance of flags and banners in brilliant
colours. Next came the priest, in a gorgeous vestment stiff with silk and
silver thread and gold tracery; and, in two rows, on either side of the
street, preceded by four little angels with gold wings, the
first-communicants, really such on this occasion, in their proper
clothes, with the great wax tapers in their white-gloved hands and a glow
in their faces and laughter in their eyes. All the people crowded after
them, through the street to the church. The bells rang out, the priest
sang with the sacristan and the whole procession triumphantly entered the
wide church-doors. There was a mighty stamping and pushing to get near
and to see the children sitting in straight rows on the front benches of
the nave. The girls settled in their clothes and the boys looked down at
their stiff, wide cloth breeches and their new shoes, or shoved their
fingers up their noses or into their tight collar-bands. The organ droned
out a mighty prelude; the priest, all in gold, stood at the altar; the
ceremony began; the people were silent and prayed over their
prayer-books.

The sun appeared! And green and red and yellow shafts of light slanted
through the stained-glass panes and mingled with the blue
incense-wreaths. They made the corners of the brasswork shine and brought
smiles to the faces of the saints in their niches. A splash of gold fell
on the curly heads of the children, dark and fair; and tiny rays flashed
upon the gilt edges of their prayer-books. The congregation prayed
diligently and the full voices sang the joyful _Gloria in excelsis_ with
the organ.

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

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

"And that work must be the foundation on which all your future life is
based. Your souls are now so clean, so pure, they are shining like clear
water and are quite spotless. For years we have taught and instructed and
prepared you in order to teach your virgin hearts, this day, now, in this
beautiful chapel, to receive that strengthening food, that miracle of
God'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 the
dead, cleanses sinners and purifies the fallen. You are still in your
first youth, without experience of life, and are already allowed to
approach the Holy Table and share the strengthening food that supports
men 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 ask
Him. So make use of it, ask Him much, ask Him everything: for your
parents and your masters, who have done so much for you, for your
pastors, your village and especially for yourselves, that He may keep you
from sin and continue to dwell in your hearts and allow you to grow up
into stout champions of the faith and of your religion. It is the
happiest 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 your
innocence, far from the corrupt world of whose existence you have not
even known. But to-morrow you will enter the wide world, with only your
weak flesh to fight against life's dangers: depravity, falsehood, lies
and sin. Now life will begin for you, now for the first time will you be
called upon to fight, to show courage and to stand firm. How many of
those who once sat where you are now sitting and who were pure and
innocent as yourselves have now, alas, become lost sinners, Judases who
have rejected their God, devils as roaring lions going about seeking whom
they may devour! Be strong, listen to your good parents: it is to them
alone that you will have to listen henceforth...."

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

"To you, fathers and mothers, I also wish a cordial _proficiat_; for you
also this is a glad and memorable day. How long is it not since you were
kneeling there! And yet that day always lingers in your memory. Since
that time you have been plunged into the world, have had to struggle and
have 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 our
care and to-day we give them back to you, instructed, enriched and
supplied with all that they can need to pass onward. You receive them
this 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 and
purity in them; it is for you to bring up these children so that later
they may be exemplary Christians. See to it that your own conduct edifies
them: it is according to you and all your actions that they will order
their lives and take example. Admonish them in good season and chastise
them when necessary: 'He that spareth the rod hateth his son,' says the
Holy Ghost. And keep your eyes open, for God will ask an account of your
stewardship and will reward or punish you according as you have brought
them up well or ill. A good son, a virtuous daughter are the joy and the
comfort of their parents."

The congregation were greatly impressed. The mothers wept: the priest was
such a good, worthy old man, whom they had known all their lives; and
they liked hearing him say all those beautiful things: that reference to
their own childhood and to their youngsters, whom they now saw sitting
there so good and saintlike, waiting to receive Our Lord, brought the
tears to their eyes; and it did them good to feel their hearts throb, to
feel 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 blue
wreaths that ascended from the sanctuary in a fragrant cloud, lingering
over the congregation. The celebrant offered the bread and wine to Our
Father in Heaven. And all this took time; the children were tired by
their tense concentration; their prayers had all been said two and three
times over; and they were now vacantly waiting and longing, looking at
their clothes, at the stained-glass windows in the choir or St. Anne in
her crimson cloak, or counting the stars that were painted high up on the
stone ceiling.

The altar-bell tinkled twice and thrice in succession; the _Sanctus_ was
sung; and after that the organ was silenced. A hush fell over the
congregation and all heads dropped, as though mown down, in deep
reverence: not one dared look up. The priest genuflected, the bell
sounded repeatedly and, amid that great hush, thrice three notes of the
great church-bell droned through the church and rang out over the distant
fields. Outside, it was all blue and sunshine and silence; everything was
bowed in anxious expectation; it was as though there were nothing erect
and alive in the world except that little church and that bell. In the
farthest houses in the village the mothers were now kneeling and beating
their breasts, with their thoughts on Our Lord. The God of Heaven and
Earth had descended and was filling all things with His awful presence.
Carefully, slowly, almost timidly came the _Adoro te_; and the people
little by little raised their heads and sighed, as though relieved and
still quite awed by what had happened or was going to happen.

And now the ceremony began. After the _Agnus Dei_ and the three tinkles
of the bell at the _Domine, non sum dignus_, the four little angels came
with hands folded and heads bowed, with their gold-paper wings carefully
furled behind them, and walked reverently to the front of the church.
Horieneke stood up, took her great sheet of paper and, in her clear
voice, read out her piece so that all the congregation could hear, though
she stopped to find her words at times and faltered here and there
because her heart was beating so violently and she had such a catch in
her 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 not
worthy to receive Thee, unless Thou say but the word that our souls may
be healed. And, as Thou hast ordained, we will, in fear and confidence,
approach Thee as poor little children approaching their kind Father. We
have nothing wherewith to repay the great love which Thou bearest us; we
are needy in all things; and all things must come from Thee. We are still
very young and have already gone astray, but we repent and are heartily
sorry to have caused Thee any grief. And, now that Thou art so
unspeakably good to us, we wish to be wholly loyal to Thee and to belong
to Thee with heart and soul; dispose of us henceforth as Thy servants and
we shall be filled with joy. Come then, O Jesus; our hearts pant with
longing, our souls are now prepared; we have begged Mary, our dear
Mother, our guardian angels and our blessed patron saints to make us
worthy habitations for Thy majesty."

The silence was so great that one could hear a leaf fall. The
congregation wriggled where they knelt to see and held their breaths,
full of expectation. The nun struck her key on the back of her chair. Two
little angels went, step by step, to the communion-bench and the first
row of boys and girls followed. The little ones now looked very serious.
They held their heads bowed and their hands clasped; and their faces
shone with heavenly light and silent inner happiness. Horieneke was now
like a white flower; her transparent little waxen face, her delicately
chiselled nose and closed pink lips looked so angelic under her sunny
curls and the white of her veil. The children approached the choir
silently and slowly: 'twas as though they were floating. At the second
tap of the key, they knelt; one more ... and their hands were under the
lace communion-cloth. From the organ-loft the _Magnificat_ resounded. The
priest took the ciborium, gave the benediction and with stately tread
descended the altar-steps. In his slender fingers he held the Sacred
Host, that small white disk which stood out sharply above the silver
vessel against the rich violet of his chasuble. The children's heads by
turn dropped backwards and fell upon their breasts, in ecstacy. The bells
rang out; the choristers shouted their hymn of praise; the priest
murmured:

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