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The Path of Life

S >> Stijn Streuvels >> The Path of Life




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

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

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

Her face grew very serious and she wrinkled her forehead:

"Look there!"

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

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

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

The children mused:

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

Doorke looked up in surprise:

"Why, Horieneke?"

"Then I should be in Heaven at once."

They again sat thinking a little:

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

"Yes, in the procession, Horieneke."

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

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

Doorke hung upon her words.

The thrush started anew and they sat listening.

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

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

"Will you get married, Doorke?"

Doorke shook his head.

"Not even to me?"

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

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

"No, Horieneke."

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

Doorke nodded.

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

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

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

The boy didn't know.

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

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

"Ready?"

"Ye-e-es!"

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

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

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

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

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

Doorke said they were put in.

Frazie helped her sister on with her things:

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

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

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

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

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

"Just five minutes then," said Petrus.

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

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

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

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

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

"A safe ride home!"

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

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

"Gee up!"

The dogs sprang forward, the cart rumbled along and soon the whole thing
had become a shapeless black patch among the black trees. In the still
night they could just hear the wheels rattling over the cobbles; and then
Ivo and Frazie went home again.

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

They stepped hurriedly on the legs of their long shadows and did not
speak. There came a new rustling in the trees and a few big, cool drops
of rain pattered on the sand, one here, one there and gradually quicker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frazie sighed:

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

"Ay."

"But she'll stay here!"

"What do you mean, stay here?"

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

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

"Don't care."

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

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

"And suppose our child comes home with a present ... from that beast of a
farmer!"

Ivo knocked out his pipe:

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

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

"Well, what's the matter?"

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

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

Mother grew impatient, bit her teeth:

"Oh, you blessed cry-baby!"

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

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

She turned out the light and it was now dark and still; outside, the thin
rain dripped and the white blossoms blew from the trees and the whole air
smelt wonderfully good. In the distance, the nightingale hidden in the
wood jugged and gurgled without stopping; and it was like the pealing of
a church-organ all night long.

* * * * *

The weather had broken up and the day dawned with a melancholy drizzle
and a cold wind. The sky remained grey, discharging misty raindrops which
soaked into everything and hung trembling like strung pearls on the
leaves of the beech-hedge and on the grass and on the cornstalks in the
fields. It was suddenly winter again. On the hilly field the people stood
black, wrapped up, with their caps drawn over their ears and their red
handkerchiefs round their necks. The hoes went up in the air one after
the other and struck the moist earth, which opened into straight furrows
from one end to the other of the field. Here wives walked barefoot, bent,
with baskets on their arm from which they kept taking potatoes and laying
them, at a foot's distance, in the open trench. In a corner of the field
stood the farmer, his big body leaning on a stick; and his dark eyes
watched his labourers.

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

* * * * *

IN THE SQUALL

* * * * *

VI

IN THE SQUALL

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

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

They went along narrow, winding foot-paths, between the cornfields, high
as a man, through the flax-meadows and the yellow blinking
mustard-flower. The sun bit into Lowietje's bare head and sent the sweat
trickling down his cheeks.

They went always on, with their eyes fixed upon that thick crowd of blue
trees full of blithe green and of dark depths behind the farthermost
trunks.

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

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

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

"Listen, Trientje," said Lowietje. "You stay here with Poentje: I'll come
back at once and bring your pinafore full of birds' eggs ... and young
ones."

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

"Lo--wie!..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ooh! Ooh!"

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

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

The trees wrung their heavy boughs and everything squeaked and rustled
terribly. The water rained and poured from the leafy vault on Trientje's
straw hat, on Lowietje's bare head and right through his little torn
shirt. And clap and clap of thunder fell; the sky opened and belched fire
like a hot oven. The children sat nestling into each other's
arms--Poentje down under the other two--and only when it had kept still
for long did they all, trembling and terrified, dare to put out their
heads.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We shall get a beating," sighed Lowietje.

* * * * *

A PIPE OR NO PIPE

* * * * *

VII

A PIPE OR NO PIPE

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

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

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

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

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

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

"1 _fr_. 50."

"Mother!..."

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

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