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The Path of Life

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WHITE LIFE

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X

WHITE LIFE

Her life flowed on as a little brook flows under grass on a Sunday noon
in summer, flowed on in calm seclusion, far from the bustle of the crowd,
secretly, steadily, uninterrupted save by ever-recurring little
incidents, peacefully approaching old age. She sat in her little white
room, behind the muslin curtains, making lace. Her cottage stood a little
way back from the street, shining behind a neatly-raked flower-garden.

The door was always shut and the curtains carefully drawn. Inside,
everything was very clean: smooth, bare walls and the ceiling washed with
milk-white chalk through which shone a soft touch of blue; and this
bright cleanliness contrasted soberly with the things that hung on the
wall. The chairs and furniture stood placed with care, as though nailed
to the floor; over the mantel hung the copper Christ, a thin, elongated
figure of Our Lord, with its sharp projections which shone when the sun
touched them: a little figure which, so long dead, hung there so firmly
nailed and looked so calmly from out of the small dark shadow-lines of
its face.

The stove stood freshly blackened, with the waved white sand on its
polished pipe.[10] Over the door of the bedroom steps hung the glass case
with the waxen image of Our Lady, a girlish figure clad in broad white
folds, with bright-red, cherry cheeks, smiling sweetly upon a doll which
she carried in her arms. On the other wall was a glaring framed print, in
which a Child Jesus romped with curly-headed angels in a motley green
wood, with behind it a sunny perspective gleaming with paradisian
delights.

[10] The Flemish stove is connected with the chimney by a flat pipe,
on which the plates and other utensils are heated. On Sundays, the
stove, the pipe and all are blacked and polished with black-lead and
turpentine; and it is an old custom of neat house-wives to powder the
stove-pipe with white sand from the dunes. The sand is allowed to run
through a little opening in the hand in a series of fine wavy lines,
forming a delicate pattern on the black pipe.

From the ceiling, in a white cage, hung the canary, which hopped from one
perch to the other, all day long, without ever singing. On the
window-seat, behind the little curtains, blossomed tall geraniums and
phlox, which, through the mesh of the muslin curtains, sent a blissful
fragrance through the room.

Life went its monotonous gait, measured by the slow tick of the hanging
clock, that big, stupid, laughing face which so pitilessly turned its two
unequal fingers round and round. Outside, close by, went the steel blows
of the smith's hammer or the biting file that grated against her wall.

The sun that laughed so pleasantly through the windows and came and put
all those things in a white gleaming light beamed right through into her
little white soul: it was yet like that of a child, had remained
innocent, never been soiled or troubled; and, now that the bad storm-time
was over, it lay still in the passionless restfulness of waning life,
quite taken up with all manner of harmless occupations, devotions and
acquired ways of an old, god-fearing woman-person. Her face, which was
wreathed in a round white goffered cap, had the smooth, yellow, waxen
pallor of the statue of Our Lady, in church, and her features the severe,
sober kindliness of nuns'. She was dressed in modest, stiffly-falling
folds of unrumpled lilac silk, like the queens in old prints.

She spent those long, quiet days at her lace-pillow. That was her only
amusement, her treasure: this half-rounded arch of smooth, blue paper on
the wooden pillow-stool, occupied by a swarm of copper pins, with
coloured-glass heads, and of finely-turned wooden bobbins, with slender
necks and notched bodies, hanging side by side from fine white threads or
heaped up behind a steel bodkin. All this array of pins, holes, drawers
and trays had for her its own form and meaning, a small world in which
she knew her way so well. Her deft white fingers knew how to throw,
change, catch and pick up those bobbins so nimbly, so swiftly; she stuck
her pins, which were to give the thread its lie and form, so accurately
and surely; and, under her hand, the lace grew slowly and imperceptibly
into a light thread network, grew with the leaves and flowers of her
geraniums and phlox and the silent course of time.

'Twas quite a feast when, in the evening, she wound off the ravelled end
and carefully examined the white web. She closely followed all the knots,
curves and twists of those transparent little veins; and 'twas with
regret that she rolled up the lace again and put it away in the drawer.

When all her peaceful thoughts had been fully pondered, when all that
life of every day, all that even round of happenings, like little white
flakes floating in the sunny sky, had drifted by through the
thought-chambers of her soul and when the light began to fail out of
doors and in, she took her rosary and prayed, for hours on end, slowly
telling the smooth beads between her fingers until, when it grew quite
dark, she started awake and became aware that for some time she had been
telling the strokes of the smith's hammer on the other side of the wall.
Then she laid herself between the white sheets and tried to sleep.

Two days ago the grid of her stove broke and today she had taken it to be
mended; she had been to the smith's and now she could not get out of her
mind what she had seen there: a black cave, like an oven, down three
steps; a dark hole hung and filled on every side with black iron tools;
and, amid all this jumble, an anvil and, in the red glow from the dancing
light of the smithy fire, a small, stunted, black little fellow, hidden
out of knowledge in that gloom; a bent, thin little man wound in a
leathern apron and with a black face, from which a pair of good-humoured
eyes peered out at her, through the shining glasses of his copper-rimmed
spectacles, like two little lights in the dark. She had gone down those
three steps, looking round shyly, afraid of getting dirty; had explained
her business to that impish little chap; and had then hastily fled from
that hell. Now it seemed to her that those two eyes had looked at her so
kindly; and she wondered how any one could live in such a hole and be a
Christian creature ... and yet that smith looked as if he had a good
heart.

Next day, she was thinking again of the little man and his dark, haunted
hole; and she sniffed the scent of her geraniums with a new pleasure and
looked with more gladness at her trim little dwelling and her
lace-pillow. She now enjoyed, realized, with all the sensual luxury of
her soul, that peaceful life of hers, something like that of the yellow,
waxen Virgin high up there on the wall, under her glass shade. And yet
she was sorry for her good neighbour: it must be so dreary alone, amid
all that dirt.... She worked at her lace, prayed and tried to think of
nothing more.

He brought the new grid home himself. At first, she was shy with the man:
she got up, went to the stove, turned back again and only now and then
dared look at the smith from under her eyes. He was wrapped up in his
work, stood bending over the stove, trying to fix the grid. Seen like
that in the light, the little chap looked quite different to her eyes: he
was no longer young, his breath came quickly; but in all that he did
there was something so friendly, so kindly, something almost
well-mannered, that went oddly with his dirty clothes and his black face.
The little smith was known in the village as a lively person, who led a
lonely life, but who was able also to divert a company: he knew his
customers and knew how to manage them all. Here he took good care not to
dirty the floor: he spat his tobacco-juice into the coal-box and touched
nothing with his hands. When at last the grid was fixed, he stayed
talking a little: he spoke of her nice little life among all those white
things; paid her a compliment on her pretty flowers and shining copper;
and then came close to look at her lace-pillow. Lastly, seeing that she
was not at her ease, that she answered his remarks so shortly and
hesitatingly, he gave a push to his cap, refused to say what she owed him
and was gone with a skip and a jump.

One Sunday, after vespers, he came again, bowed politely, fetched a bit
of paper out of his waistcoat-pocket and sat down on a chair by the
stove. This visit annoyed her: with the quickness with which small-minded
people weigh and think over a matter, her eyes went to the window to see
if anybody had observed him come in and was likely to set evil tongues
a-clacking. It was almost bound to be so; and, to keep her honour safe,
she opened her door, mumbling something about "warm weather" and "the
tobacco-smoke which made her cough."

She went to her room, fetched some money and paid the bill. The smith sat
where he was, knocked out his little stone pipe and put it in his inside
pocket; he did not look at his money and, in his hoarse little voice,
began to talk of quite common things: of wind and weather and the current
news of the village; always chatting in the same tone, a jumble of long,
breathless statements. From this he went on to his dreary, lonely life,
the monotonous quiet of it and the danger of thieves, sickness and sudden
death. She said not a word, but, against the bright window-curtains, the
sharp, heavy profile of her face, together with the flutes of her white
cap, went up and down in a continual nodding assent to everything he
said. At the end, she took pleasure in hearing him talk, nor now looked
upon that clean-washed face of his as at all so ugly. It even did her
good to see some one sitting there who came to enliven the monotony of
that long Sunday evening. By her leave, he had lighted a fresh pipe; and
she now sat sniffing up that unaccustomed smell, which rose in little
puffs from behind the stove and floated round the room, filling it with
long rows of blue curls. 'Twas as if she were overcome by that quite new
smell of tobacco and she felt inclined to sleep; she stood up, to get rid
of that slackness, shut the front-door and, without thinking what she was
doing, asked if he would have some coffee. He nodded, gladly.

She put the kettle on and got the coffee-pot ready, fetched out her best
cups and spoons and the white sugar. When the steam came rushing from the
spout, she poured water on the coffee and they sat down, one on each side
of the table, to sip the savoury drink in tiny draughts. 'Twas long since
she had felt so comfortable and for the first time she thought with
dislike of her lonely life. 'Twas late when he went home; she came with
him to the door ... and saw black figures that strolled past in the
street and perhaps had seen him leave. She had bad dreams all night: the
people pointed their fingers at her and slanderous tongues spread ugly
things about her. The whole of the next day her thoughts were in the
smithy; she swept the pavement more carefully and farther than usual,
went now and then and looked out of window; and her little curtains were
left open with a split in the middle. Yesterday, she had forgotten to
give the canary fresh water to drink. The people looked at her in the
street; two or three god-fearing gossips had let her walk home alone.
This gave her great pain; 'twas as though a heavy load were weighing day
and night on her breast; and yet she was not sorry for what had happened.
All these trifles could not make her forget her content. She said her
prayers and performed her little duties with as much care as before and
lived on, alone.

On Sunday, she went to church very early and prayed long: it did her so
much good, that delightful whispering with God, that sweet kind Lord Who
listened to her so patiently and always sent her away with fresh courage,
strengthened to walk on bravely along life's irksome way. Sometimes she
was frightened at her behaviour! She was gnawed by a reproachful thought:
that she had left the straight path, that she no longer lived for God
alone, that she was forgetting her dear saints and busy with sinful
thoughts. And yet, when she carefully considered everything, nothing had
happened that seemed to her blameworthy; all that change in her life had
come as of itself and in spite of herself; and really, after all, there
was no harm in it. She prayed for that good man, who certainly needed her
spiritual aid: he went so seldom to church and lived in such a dreary
black hole. Her prayers and interest would for sure bring him to a better
frame of mind. And yet she must watch, keep strong, avoid the dangers:
her honour was a tender thing; and people were wicked. She stayed longer
than usual in the confessional and offered special prayers to every saint
in the church.

When she was back at home, she began her little Sunday duties: the
lace-pillow was put away that day and she did nothing but arrange things,
put things in their places, gather a fresh nosegay for the porcelain vase
before Our Lady's statue and see to her cooking. She picked the withered
leaves from the geraniums, bound the branches of the phlox to the trellis
and gave them fresh water from a little flowered can. She was specially
fond of her little pot of musk: it stood on the window-seat, opposite her
chair, carefully set in a rush cage stuck into the earth and fastened at
the top with a thread. Sometimes she took it on her lap, bent her face
over it and sniffed the pleasant smell in long draughts, until she was
almost drunk with it.

In the afternoon, she sat down at the window and read her Thomas à
Kempis. Then all was quite still: no hammering behind the wall, no boys
in the street, only the soft tapping of the canary in his food-trough and
the tick of the pendulum; everything was quiet as though in an enchanted
sleep. The sun glowed through the geranium-leaves and cast on the
red-tiled floor a broad, round shadow which took the whole afternoon to
creep from the legs of the stove to the front-door.

The flies buzzed round on the rafters of the ceiling or ran along the
cracks of the white-scoured table. Her thoughts wandered wearily and
lazily through the wise maxims of her book and she sometimes sat peering
at the funny shape of a coloured initial which, after long looking,
became such a silly figure, one that no longer looked in the least like a
letter, but was rather something in the form of a vice.... The lines of
print ran into one another, the maxims said all sorts of foolish things,
her eyes closed, her head nodded and she sank, with all those peaceful
things, into perfect rest.

After dinner, the smith had had a sleep; then he washed his face, put on
his best clothes and went past her window to vespers. In the evening, she
saw him again when he went to the customers for a pot of beer: this time
he gave her a friendly nod.

For her, Sunday passed like all the other days; she prayed longer and
closed her shutter earlier for fear of the drunkards. After saying a long
row of graces which she knew by heart, she went to her bedroom. In the
stuffy air of that closed upper chamber, she lay thinking. She was not
sleepy and it was nice, in the evening stillness, covered in her white
sheets, to lie with her eyes looking through the split in the white
curtains at the moon which hung shining outside.

Now she gave free scope to her thoughts, until all of that had again been
pondered round and pondered out. Then it became so funny to her: 'twas as
if she were long dead now and floating in a pale and scented air in the
company of sweet saints and angels. But it was oh, so hazy and
indistinct! It always escaped her when she wanted to enjoy it more
closely and to give the thing a name.

It was night when the smith came home, a little tipsy, deceived by his
great thirst and the double effect of the beer in that warm weather. He
was very cheery, without really knowing why; something like a soft
buzzing fire ran through all his body and made him tingle with happiness.
They had chaffed him that evening about the old maid next door and he now
felt inclined just to tell her about it.

Wasn't it a shame for two people to lie here so quietly and drearily,
parted by a bit of a wall, when they could have been amusing each
other?... His white neighbour was sure to be asleep by now ... and, if he
only dared ... and, quicker indeed than he intended, he gave three little
taps on the wall and lay listening, all agog.... Three like little taps
answered! This was so unexpected that at first he sat wondering whether
he could believe his ears; then he began to swim and sprawl in his bed,
bit his teeth so as not to shout out his overflowing delight and started
banging on the wall, this time with his fists. It was too late to-night:
to-morrow, he would go to her and ask her ... and then they would
both ... and he would no longer be alone, always alone, and would have
some one to care for him, to look after him.... In all this happiness he
drowsed off gently, rocked in another world, like a little wax doll in a
pale-blue paper box.

She had started out of her sleep at those three taps and had answered,
not knowing why; then she had got frightened at that wild man behind her
wall, had jumped out of bed and struck a light and sat waiting until the
noise stopped; then she commended her soul into the Lord's hands and fell
softly asleep.

The first time that he went to see her, he found the door shut. Once,
when he met her in the street, she kept her eyes carefully cast down and
passed him without a sign of greeting. Her curtains remained drawn and
she never came to the door now. He went home and sat musing on his anvil.
All his plan was blown to bits; he found himself sadly duped and turned
red with anger when folk spoke of his dear neighbour. He hammered and
filed from morning till night; and she must now be making her lace.

Time pushed past, divided into even days, along a smooth road that led
down the mountain-slope of summer. The leaves fell from the geraniums and
the phlox. The neatly-cut-out paper fly-catcher was put away and the lamp
hung up in its place. With the sad, short days came the grey, misty sky,
the dismal, dripping rain and the white snow. The village lay dead for
half the day, dark, with here and there a little ray of light gleaming
through the shutters.

And it became gradually drearier for her: that calm rest, in which she
had once found such a pure delight, was now a heavy weariness. She longed
for change, for something different which she could not justly define, or
else to live again as before, alone and with nothing but herself. She had
struggled and fought to rid herself of that obsession, but it followed
her everywhere: she saw him go by, even when her eyes were fixed on the
lace-pillow, the stove, or the chair on which he had sat; and there was
that constant hammering and scratching behind her wall: everywhere she
saw those two kind eyes behind the copper rims of his spectacles; and she
sometimes caught herself contentedly tracing the good-natured features of
his little black face. She had prayed more than ever and evoked quite new
saints; and now she let herself drift along at God's pleasure, no longer
even thinking of her weakness. Perhaps she was the instrument of a
Blessed Providence, destined blindly to do good.

The little curtains had long been pushed apart again; and, each time that
she heard approaching footsteps, her heart went beating and her eyes
looked eagerly to see if by chance ... it was not he.

Sometimes, an anxious fluttering drove her to the front-door, where she
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.

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