The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crushed Flower and Other Stories
by Leonid Andreyev

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: The Crushed Flower and Other Stories

Author: Leonid Andreyev

Release Date: May, 2004  [EBook #5779]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on September 1, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CRUSHED FLOWER AND OTHER STORIES ***




This eBook was produced by Jarrod Newton <sardonicist@hotmail.com>.




THE CRUSHED FLOWER AND OTHER STORIES


Leonid Andreyev

Translated by Herman Bernstein





CONTENTS

The Crushed Flower
A Story Which Will Never Be Finished
On the Day of the Crucifixion
The Serpent's Story
Love, Faith and Hope
The Ocean
Judas Iscariot and Others
"The Man Who Found the Truth"





THE CRUSHED FLOWER




CHAPTER I


His name was Yura.

He was six years old, and the world was to him enormous, alive and
bewitchingly mysterious.  He knew the sky quite well.  He knew its
deep azure by day, and the white-breasted, half silvery, half golden
clouds slowly floating by.  He often watched them as he lay on his
back upon the grass or upon the roof.  But he did not know the stars
so well, for he went to bed early.  He knew well and remembered only
one star--the green, bright and very attentive star that rises in the
pale sky just before you go to bed, and that seemed to be the only
star so large in the whole sky.

But best of all, he knew the earth in the yard, in the street and in
the garden, with all its inexhaustible wealth of stones, of velvety
grass, of hot sand and of that wonderfully varied, mysterious and
delightful dust which grown people did not notice at all from the
height of their enormous size.  And in falling asleep, as the last
bright image of the passing day, he took along to his dreams a bit of
hot, rubbed off stone bathed in sunshine or a thick layer of tenderly
tickling, burning dust.

When he went with his mother to the centre of the city along the
large streets, he remembered best of all, upon his return, the wide,
flat stones upon which his steps and his feet seemed terribly small,
like two little boats.  And even the multitude of revolving wheels
and horses' heads did not impress themselves so clearly upon his
memory as this new and unusually interesting appearance of the ground.

Everything was enormous to him--the fences, the dogs and the people--
but that did not at all surprise or frighten him; that only made
everything particularly interesting; that transformed life into an
uninterrupted miracle.  According to his measures, various objects
seemed to him as follows:

His father--ten yards tall.

His mother--three yards.

The neighbour's angry dog--thirty yards.

Their own dog--ten yards, like papa.

Their house of one story was very, very tall--a mile.

The distance between one side of the street and the other--two miles.

Their garden and the trees in their garden seemed immense,
infinitely tall.

The city--a million--just how much he did not know.

And everything else appeared to him in the same way.  He knew many
people, large and small, but he knew and appreciated better the
little ones with whom he could speak of everything.  The grown people
behaved so foolishly and asked such absurd, dull questions about
things that everybody knew, that it was necessary for him also to
make believe that he was foolish.  He had to lisp and give
nonsensical answers; and, of course, he felt like running away from
them as soon as possible.  But there were over him and around him and
within him two entirely extraordinary persons, at once big and small,
wise and foolish, at once his own and strangers--his father and mother.

They must have been very good people, otherwise they could not have
been his father and mother; at any rate, they were charming and
unlike other people.  He could say with certainty that his father was
very great, terribly wise, that he possessed immense power, which
made him a person to be feared somewhat, and it was interesting to
talk with him about unusual things, placing his hand in father's
large, strong, warm hand for safety's sake.

Mamma was not so large, and sometimes she was even very small; she
was very kind hearted, she kissed tenderly; she understood very well
how he felt when he had a pain in his little stomach, and only with
her could he relieve his heart when he grew tired of life, of his
games or when he was the victim of some cruel injustice.  And if it
was unpleasant to cry in father's presence, and even dangerous to be
capricious, his tears had an unusually pleasant taste in mother's
presence and filled his soul with a peculiar serene sadness, which he
could find neither in his games nor in laughter, nor even in the
reading of the most terrible fairy tales.

It should be added that mamma was a beautiful woman and that
everybody was in love with her.  That was good, for he felt proud of
it, but that was also bad--for he feared that she might be taken
away.  And every time one of the men, one of those enormous,
invariably inimical men who were busy with themselves, looked at
mamma fixedly for a long time, Yura felt bored and uneasy.  He felt
like stationing himself between him and mamma, and no matter where he
went to attend to his own affairs, something was drawing him back.

Sometimes mamma would utter a bad, terrifying phrase:

"Why are you forever staying around here?  Go and play in your own
room."

There was nothing left for him to do but to go away.  He would take
a book along or he would sit down to draw, but that did not always
help him.  Sometimes mamma would praise him for reading but sometimes
she would say again:

"You had better go to your own room, Yurochka.  You see, you've
spilt water on the tablecloth again; you always do some mischief with
your drawing."

And then she would reproach him for being perverse.  But he felt
worst of all when a dangerous and suspicious guest would come when
Yura had to go to bed.  But when he lay down in his bed a sense of
easiness came over him and he felt as though all was ended; the
lights went out, life stopped; everything slept.

In all such cases with suspicious men Yura felt vaguely but very
strongly that he was replacing father in some way.  And that made him
somewhat like a grown man--he was in a bad frame of mind, like a
grown person, but, therefore, he was unusually calculating, wise and
serious.  Of course, he said nothing about this to any one, for no
one would understand him; but, by the manner in which he caressed
father when he arrived and sat down on his knees patronisingly, one
could see in the boy a man who fulfilled his duty to the end.  At
times father could not understand him and would simply send him away
to play or to sleep--Yura never felt offended and went away with a
feeling of great satisfaction.  He did not feel the need of being
understood; he even feared it.  At times he would not tell under any
circumstances why he was crying; at times he would make believe that
he was absent minded, that he heard nothing, that he was occupied
with his own affairs, but he heard and understood.

And he had a terrible secret.  He had noticed that these
extraordinary and charming people, father and mother, were sometimes
unhappy and were hiding this from everybody.  Therefore he was also
concealing his discovery, and gave everybody the impression that all
was well.  Many times he found mamma crying somewhere in a corner in
the drawing room, or in the bedroom--his own room was next to her
bedroom--and one night, very late, almost at dawn, he heard the
terribly loud and angry voice of father and the weeping voice of
mother.  He lay a long time, holding his breath, but then he was so
terrified by that unusual conversation in the middle of the night
that he could not restrain himself and he asked his nurse in a soft
voice:

"What are they saying?"

And the nurse answered quickly in a whisper:

"Sleep, sleep.  They are not saying anything."

"I am coming over to your bed."

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?  Such a big boy!"

"I am coming over to your bed."

Thus, terribly afraid lest they should be heard, they spoke in
whispers and argued in the dark; and the end was that Yura moved over
to nurse's bed, upon her rough, but cosy and warm blanket.

In the morning papa and mamma were very cheerful and Yura pretended
that he believed them and it seemed that he really did believe them.
But that same evening, and perhaps it was another evening, he noticed
his father crying.  It happened in the following way:  He was passing
his father's study, and the door was half open; he heard a noise and
he looked in quietly--father lay face downward upon his couch and
cried aloud.  There was no one else in the room.  Yura went away,
turned about in his room and came back--the door was still half open,
no one but father was in the room, and he was still sobbing.  If he
cried quietly, Yura could understand it, but he sobbed loudly, he
moaned in a heavy voice and his teeth were gnashing terribly.  He lay
there, covering the entire couch, hiding his head under his broad
shoulders, sniffing heavily--and that was beyond his understanding.
And on the table, on the large table covered with pencils, papers and
a wealth of other things, stood the lamp burning with a red flame,
and smoking--a flat, greyish black strip of smoke was coming out and
bending in all directions.

Suddenly father heaved a loud sigh and stirred.  Yura walked away
quietly.  And then all was the same as ever.  No one would have
learned of this; but the image of the enormous, mysterious and
charming man who was his father and who was crying remained in Yura's
memory as something dreadful and extremely serious.  And, if there
were things of which he did not feel like speaking, it was absolutely
necessary to say nothing of this, as though it were something sacred
and terrible, and in that silence he must love father all the more.
But he must love so that father should not notice it, and he must
give the impression that it is very jolly to live on earth.

And Yura succeeded in accomplishing all this.  Father did not notice
that he loved him in a special manner; and it was really jolly to
live on earth, so there was no need for him to make believe.  The
threads of his soul stretched themselves to all--to the sun, to the
knife and the cane he was peeling; to the beautiful and enigmatic
distance which he saw from the top of the iron roof; and it was hard
for him to separate himself from all that was not himself.  When the
grass had a strong and fragrant odour it seemed to him that it was he
who had such a fragrant odour, and when he lay down in his bed,
however strange it may seem, together with him in his little bed lay
down the enormous yard, the street, the slant threads of the rain and
the muddy pools and the whole, enormous, live, fascinating,
mysterious world.  Thus all fell asleep with him and thus all
awakened with him, and together with him they all opened their eyes.
And there was one striking fact, worthy of the profoundest reflection
--if he placed a stick somewhere in the garden in the evening it was
there also in the morning; and the knuckle-bones which he hid in a
box in the barn remained there, although it was dark and he went to
his room for the night.  Because of this he felt a natural need for
hiding under his pillow all that was most valuable to him.  Since
things stood or lay there alone, they might also disappear of their
accord, he reasoned.  And in general it was so wonderful and pleasant
that the nurse and the house and the sun existed not only yesterday,
but every day; he felt like laughing and singing aloud when he awoke.

When people asked him what his name was he answered promptly:

"Yura."

But some people were not satisfied with this alone, and they wanted
to know his full name--and then he replied with a certain effort:

"Yura Mikhailovich."

And after a moment's thought he added:

"Yura Mikhailovich Pushkarev."



CHAPTER II


An unusual day arrived.  It was mother's birthday.  Guests were
expected in the evening; military music was to play, and in the
garden and upon the terrace parti-coloured lanterns were to burn, and
Yura need not go to bed at 9 o'clock but could stay up as late as he
liked.

Yura got up when all were still sleeping.  He dressed himself and
jumped out quickly with the expectation of miracles.  But he was
unpleasantly surprised--the rooms were in the same disorder as usual
in the morning; the cook and the chambermaid were still sleeping and
the door was closed with a hook--it was hard to believe that the
people would stir and commence to run about, and that the rooms would
assume a holiday appearance, and he feared for the fate of the
festival.  It was still worse in the garden.  The paths were not
swept and there was not a single lantern there.  He grew very uneasy.
Fortunately, Yevmen, the coachman, was washing the carriage behind
the barn in the back yard and though he had done this frequently
before, and though there was nothing unusual about his appearance,
Yura clearly felt something of the holiday in the decisive way in
which the coachman splashed the water from the bucket with his sinewy
arms, on which the sleeves of his red blouse were rolled up to his
elbows.  Yevmen only glanced askance at Yura, and suddenly Yura seemed
to have noticed for the first time his broad, black, wavy beard and
thought respectfully that Yevmen was a very worthy man.  He said:

"Good morning, Yevmen."

Then all moved very rapidly.  Suddenly the janitor appeared and
started to sweep the paths, suddenly the window in the kitchen was
thrown open and women's voices were heard chattering; suddenly the
chambermaid rushed out with a little rug and started to beat it with
a stick, as though it were a dog.  All commenced to stir; and the
events, starting simultaneously in different places, rushed with such
mad swiftness that it was impossible to catch up with them.  While
the nurse was giving Yura his tea, people were beginning to hang up
the wires for the lanterns in the garden, and while the wires were
being stretched in the garden, the furniture was rearranged
completely in the drawing room, and while the furniture was
rearranged in the drawing room, Yevmen, the coachman, harnessed the
horse and drove out of the yard with a certain special, mysterious
mission.

Yura succeeded in concentrating himself for some time with the
greatest difficulty.  Together with father he was hanging up the
lanterns.  And father was charming; he laughed, jested, put Yura on
the ladder; he himself climbed the thin, creaking rungs of the
ladder, and finally both fell down together with the ladder upon the
grass, but they were not hurt.  Yura jumped up, while father remained
lying on the grass, hands thrown back under his head, looking with
half-closed eyes at the shining, infinite azure of the sky.  Thus
lying on the grass, with a serious expression on his face, apparently
not in the mood for play, father looked very much like Gulliver
longing for his land of giants.  Yura recalled something unpleasant;
but to cheer his father up he sat down astride upon his knees and said:

"Do you remember, father, when I was a little boy I used to sit down
on your knees and you used to shake me like a horse?"

But before he had time to finish he lay with his nose on the grass;
he was lifted in the air and thrown down with force--father had
thrown him high up with his knees, according to his old habit.  Yura
felt offended; but father, entirely ignoring his anger, began to
tickle him under his armpits, so that Yura had to laugh against his
will; and then father picked him up like a little pig by the legs and
carried him to the terrace.  And mamma was frightened.

"What are you doing?  The blood will rush to his head!"

After which Yura found himself standing on his legs, red faced,
dishevelled, feeling very miserable and terribly happy at the same
time.

The day was rushing fast, like a cat that is chased by a dog.  Like
forerunners of the coming great festival, certain messengers appeared
with notes, wonderfully tasty cakes were brought, the dressmaker came
and locked herself in with mamma in the bedroom; then two gentlemen
arrived, then another gentleman, then a lady--evidently the entire
city was in a state of agitation.  Yura examined the messengers as
though they were strange people from another world, and walked before
them with an air of importance as the son of the lady whose birthday
was to be celebrated; he met the gentlemen, he escorted the cakes,
and toward midday he was so exhausted that he suddenly started to
despise life.  He quarrelled with the nurse and lay down in his bed
face downward in order to have his revenge on her; but he fell asleep
immediately.  He awoke with the same feeling of hatred for life and a
desire for revenge, but after having looked at things with his eyes,
which he washed with cold water, he felt that both the world and life
were so fascinating that they were even funny.

When they dressed Yura in a red silk rustling blouse, and he thus
clearly became part of the festival, and he found on the terrace a
long, snow white table glittering with glass dishes, he again
commenced to spin about in the whirlpool of the onrushing events.

"The musicians have arrived!  The musicians have arrived!" he cried,
looking for father or mother, or for any one who would treat the
arrival of the musicians with proper seriousness.  Father and mother
were sitting in the garden--in the arbour which was thickly
surrounded with wild grapes--maintaining silence; the beautiful head
of mother lay on father's shoulder; although father embraced her, he
seemed very serious, and he showed no enthusiasm when he was told of
the arrival of the musicians.  Both treated their arrival with
inexplicable indifference, which called forth a feeling of sadness in
Yura.  But mamma stirred and said:

"Let me go.  I must go."

"Remember," said father, referring to something Yura did not
understand but which resounded in his heart with a light, gnawing
alarm.

"Stop.  Aren't you ashamed?" mother laughed, and this laughter made
Yura feel still more alarmed, especially since father did not laugh
but maintained the same serious and mournful appearance of Gulliver
pining for his native land....

But soon all this was forgotten, for the wonderful festival had
begun in all its glory, mystery and grandeur.  The guests came fast,
and there was no longer any place at the white table, which had been
deserted but a while before.  Voices resounded, and laughter and
merry jests, and the music began to play.  And on the deserted paths
of the garden where but a while ago Yura had wandered alone,
imagining himself a prince in quest of the sleeping princess, now
appeared people with cigarettes and with loud free speech.  Yura met
the first guests at the front entrance; he looked at each one
carefully, and he made the acquaintance and even the friendship of
some of them on the way from the corridor to the table.

Thus he managed to become friendly with the officer, whose name was
Mitenka--a grown man whose name was Mitenka--he said so himself.
Mitenka had a heavy leather sword, which was as cold as a snake,
which could not be taken out--but Mitenka lied; the sword was only
fastened at the handle with a silver cord, but it could be taken out
very nicely; and Yura felt vexed because the stupid Mitenka instead
of carrying his sword, as he always did, placed it in a corner in the
hallway as a cane.  But even in the corner the sword stood out alone--
one could see at once that it was a sword.  Another thing that
displeased Yura was that another officer came with Mitenka, an
officer whom Yura knew and whose name was also Yura Mikhailovich.
Yura thought that the officer must have been named so for fun.  That
wrong Yura Mikhailovich had visited them several times; he even came
once on horseback; but most of the time he came just before little
Yura had to go to bed.  And little Yura went to bed, while the unreal
Yura Mikhailovich remained with mamma, and that caused him to feel
alarmed and sad; he was afraid that mamma might be deceived.  He paid
no attention to the real Yura Mikhailovich: and now, walking beside
Mitenka, he did not seem to realise his guilt; he adjusted his
moustaches and maintained silence.  He kissed mamma's hand, and that
seemed repulsive to little Yura; but the stupid Mitenka also kissed
mamma's hand, and thereby set everything aright.

But soon the guests arrived in such numbers, and there was such a
variety of them, as if they had fallen straight from the sky.  And
some of them seemed to have fallen near the table, while others
seemed to have fallen into the garden.  Suddenly several students and
ladies appeared in the path.  The ladies were ordinary, but the
students had holes cut at the left side of their white coats--for
their swords.  But they did not bring their swords along, no doubt
because of their pride--they were all very proud.  And the ladies
rushed over to Yura and began to kiss him.  Then the most beautiful
of the ladies, whose name was Ninochka, took Yura to the swing and
swung him until she threw him down.  He hurt his left leg near the
knee very painfully and even stained his little white pants in that
spot, but of course he did not cry, and somehow his pain had quickly
disappeared somewhere.  At this time father was leading an important-
looking bald-headed old man in the garden, and he asked Yurochka,

"Did you get hurt?"

But as the old man also smiled and also spoke, Yurochka did not kiss
father and did not even answer him; but suddenly he seemed to have
lost his mind--he commenced to squeal for joy and to run around.  If
he had a bell as large as the whole city he would have rung that
bell; but as he had no such bell he climbed the linden tree, which
stood near the terrace, and began to show off.  The guests below were
laughing and mamma was shouting, and suddenly the music began to
play, and Yura soon stood in front of the orchestra, spreading his
legs apart and, according to his old but long forgotten habit, put
his finger into his mouth.  The sounds seemed to strike at him all at
once; they roared and thundered; they made his legs tingle, and they
shook his jaw.  They played so loudly that there was nothing but the
orchestra on the whole earth--everything else had vanished.  The
brass ends of some of the trumpets even spread apart and opened wide
from the great roaring; Yura thought that it would be interesting to
make a military helmet out of such a trumpet.

Suddenly Yura grew sad.  The music was still roaring, but now it was
somewhere far away, while within him all became quiet, and it was
growing ever more and more quiet.  Heaving a deep sigh, Yura looked
at the sky--it was so high--and with slow footsteps he started out to
make the rounds of the holiday, of all its confused boundaries,
possibilities and distances.  And everywhere he turned out to be too
late; he wanted to see how the tables for card playing would be
arranged, but the tables were ready and people had been playing cards
for a long time when he came up.  He touched the chalk and the brush
near his father and his father immediately chased him away.  What of
that, what difference did that make to him?  He wanted to see how
they would start to dance and he was sure that they would dance in
the parlour, but they had already commenced to dance, not in the
parlour, but under the linden trees.  He wanted to see how they would
light the lanterns, but the lanterns had all been lit already, every
one of them, to the very last of the last.  They lit up of themselves
like stars.

Mamma danced best of all.



CHAPTER III


Night arrived in the form of red, green and yellow lanterns.  While
there were no lanterns, there was no night.  And now it lay
everywhere.  It crawled into the bushes; it covered the entire garden
with darkness, as with water, and it covered the sky.  Everything
looked as beautiful as the very best fairy tale with coloured
pictures.  At one place the house had disappeared entirely; only the
square window made of red light remained.  And the chimney of the
house was visible and there a certain spark glistened, looked down
and seemed to think of its own affairs.  What affairs do chimneys
have?  Various affairs.

Of the people in the garden only their voices remained.  As long as
some one walked near the lanterns he could be seen; but as soon as he
walked away all seemed to melt, melt, melt, and the voice above the
ground laughed, talked, floating fearlessly in the darkness.  But the
officers and the students could be seen even in the dark--a white
spot, and above it a small light of a cigarette and a big voice.

And now the most joyous thing commenced for Yura--the fairy tale.
The people and the festival and the lanterns remained on earth, while
he soared away, transformed into air, melting in the night like a
grain of dust.  The great mystery of the night became his mystery,
and his little heart yearned for still more mystery; in its solitude
his heart yearned for the fusion of life and death.  That was Yura's
second madness that evening--he became invisible.  Although he could
enter the kitchen as others did, he climbed with difficulty upon the
roof of the cellar over which the kitchen window was flooded with
light and he looked in; there people were roasting something, busying
themselves, and did not know that he was looking at them--and yet he
saw everything!  Then he went away and looked at papa's and mamma's
bedroom; the room was empty; but the beds had already been made for
the night and a little image lamp was burning--he saw that.  Then he
looked into his own room; his own bed was also ready, waiting for
him.  He passed the room where they were playing cards, also as an
invisible being, holding his breath and stepping so lightly, as
though he were soaring in the air.  Only when he reached the garden,
in the dark, he drew a proper breath.  Then he resumed his quest.  He
came over to people who were talking so near him that he could touch
them with his hand, and yet they did not know that he was there, and
they continued to speak undisturbed.  He watched Ninochka for a long
time until he learned all her life--he was almost trapped.  Ninochka
even exclaimed:

"Yurochka, is that you?"

He lay down behind a bush and held his breath.  Thus Ninochka was
deceived.  And she had almost caught him!  To make things more
mysterious, he started to crawl instead of walk--now the alleys
seemed full of danger.  Thus a long time went by--according to his
own calculations at the time, ten years went by, and he was still
hiding and going ever farther away from the people.  And thus he went
so far that he was seized with dread--between him and the past, when
he was walking like everybody else, an abyss was formed over which it
seemed to him impossible to cross.  Now he would have come out into
the light but he was afraid--it was impossible; all was lost.  And
the music was still playing, and everybody had forgotten him, even
mamma.  He was alone.  There was a breath of cold from the dewy
grass; the gooseberry bush scratched him, the darkness could not be
pierced with his eyes, and there was no end to it.  O Lord!

Without any definite plan, in a state of utter despair, Yura now
crawled toward a mysterious, faintly blinking light.  Fortunately it
turned out to be the same arbour which was covered with wild grapes
and in which father and mother had sat that day.  He did not
recognise it at first!  Yes, it was the same arbour.  The lights of
the lanterns everywhere had gone out, and only two were still
burning; a yellow little lantern was still burning brightly, and the
other, a yellow one, too, was already beginning to blink.  And though
there was no wind, that lantern quivered from its own blinking, and
everything seemed to quiver slightly.  Yura was about to get up to go
into the arbour and there begin life anew, with an imperceptible
transition from the old, when suddenly he heard voices in the arbour.
His mother and the wrong Yura Mikhailovich, the officer, were
talking.  The right Yura grew petrified in his place; his heart stood
still; and his breathing ceased.

Mamma said:

"Stop.  You have lost your mind!  Somebody may come in here."

Yura Mikhailovich said:

"And you?"

Mamma said:

"I am twenty-six years old to-day.  I am old!"

Yura Mikhailovich said:

"He does not know anything.  Is it possible that he does not know
anything?  He does not even suspect?  Listen, does he shake
everybody's hand so firmly?"

Mamma said:

"What a question!  Of course he does!  That is--no, not everybody."

Yura Mikhailovich said:

"I feel sorry for him."

Mamma said:

"For him?"

And she laughed strangely.  Yurochka understood that they were
talking of him, of Yurochka--but what did it all mean, O Lord?  And
why did she laugh?

Yura Mikhailovich said:

"Where are you going?  I will not let you go."

Mamma said:

"You offend me.  Let me go!  No, you have no right to kiss me.  Let
me go!"

They became silent.  Now Yurochka looked through the leaves and saw
that the officer embraced and kissed mamma.  Then they spoke of
something, but he understood nothing; he heard nothing; he suddenly
forgot the meaning of words.  And he even forgot the words which he
knew and used before.  He remembered but one word, "Mamma," and he
whispered it uninterruptedly with his dry lips, but that word sounded
so terrible, more terrible than anything.  And in order not to
exclaim it against his will, Yura covered his mouth with both hands,
one upon the other, and thus remained until the officer and mamma
went out of the arbour.

When Yura came into the room where the people were playing cards,
the serious, bald-headed man was scolding papa for something,
brandishing the chalk, talking, shouting, saying that father did not
act as he should have acted, that what he had done was impossible,
that only bad people did such things, that the old man would never
again play with father, and so on.  And father was smiling, waving
his hands, attempting to say something, but the old man would not let
him, and he commenced to shout more loudly.  And the old man was a
little fellow, while father was big, handsome and tall, and his smile
was sad, like that of Gulliver pining for his native land of tall and
handsome people.

Of course, he must conceal from him--of course, he must conceal from
him that which happened in the arbour, and he must love him, and he
felt that he loved him so much.  And with a wild cry Yura rushed over
to the bald-headed old man and began to beat him with his fists with
all his strength.

"Don't you dare insult him!  Don't you dare insult him!"

O Lord, what has happened!  Some one laughed; some one shouted.
Father caught Yura in his arms, pressed him closely, causing him
pain, and cried:

"Where is mother?  Call mother."

Then Yura was seized with a whirlwind of frantic tears, of desperate
sobs and mortal anguish.  But through his frantic tears he looked at
his father to see whether he had guessed it, and when mother came in
he started to shout louder in order to divert any suspicion.  But he
did not go to her arms; he clung more closely to father, so that
father had to carry him into his room.  But it seemed that he himself
did not want to part with Yura.  As soon as he carried him out of the
room where the guests were he began to kiss him, and he repeated:

"Oh, my dearest!  Oh, my dearest!"

And he said to mamma, who walked behind him:

"Just think of the boy!"

Mamma said:

"That is all due to your whist.  You were scolding each other so,
that the child was frightened."

Father began to laugh, and answered:

"Yes, he does scold harshly.  But Yura, oh, what a dear boy!"

In his room Yura demanded that father himself undress him.  "Now,
you are getting cranky," said father.  "I don't know how to do it;
let mamma undress you."

"But you stay here."

Mamma had deft fingers and she undressed him quickly, and while she
was removing his clothes Yura held father by the hand.  He ordered
the nurse out of the room; but as father was beginning to grow angry,
and he might guess what had happened in the arbour, decided to let
him go.  But while kissing him he said cunningly:

"He will not scold you any more, will he?"

Papa smiled.  Then he laughed, kissed Yura once more and said:

"No, no.  And if he does I will throw him across the fence."

"Please, do," said Yura.  "You can do it.  You are so strong."

"Yes, I am pretty strong.  But you had better sleep!  Mamma will
stay here with you a while."

Mamma said:

"I will send the nurse in.  I must attend to the supper."

Father shouted:

"There is plenty of time for that!  You can stay a while with the
child."

But mamma insisted:

"We have guests!  We can't leave them that way."

But father looked at her steadfastly, and shrugged his shoulders.
Mamma decided to stay.

"Very well, then, I'll stay here.  But see that Maria does not mix
up the wines."

Usually it was thus: when mamma sat near Yura as he was falling
asleep she held his hand until the last moment--that is what she
usually did.  But now she sat as though she were all alone, as though
Yura, her son, who was falling asleep, was not there at all--she
folded her hands in her lap and looked into the distance.  To attract
her attention Yura stirred, but mamma said briefly:

"Sleep."

And she continued to look.  But when Yura's eyes had grown heavy and
he was falling asleep with all his sorrow and his tears, mamma
suddenly went down on her knees before the little bed and kissed Yura
firmly many, many times.  But her kisses were wet--hot and wet.

"Why are your kisses wet?  Are you crying?" muttered Yura.

"Yes, I am crying."

"You must not cry."

"Very well, I won't," answered mother submissively.

And again she kissed him firmly, firmly, frequently, frequently.
Yura lifted both hands with a heavy movement, clasped his mother
around the neck and pressed his burning cheek firmly to her wet and
cold cheek.  She was his mother, after all; there was nothing to be
done.  But how painful; how bitterly painful!





A STORY WHICH WILL NEVER BE FINISHED




Exhausted with the painful uncertainty of the day, I fell asleep,
dressed, on my bed.  Suddenly my wife aroused me.  In her hand a
candle was flickering, which appeared to me in the middle of the
night as bright as the sun.  And behind the candle her chin, too, was
trembling, and enormous, unfamiliar dark eyes stared motionlessly.

"Do you know," she said, "do you know they are building barricades
on our street?"

It was quiet.  We looked straight into each other's eyes, and I felt
my face turning pale.  Life vanished somewhere and then returned again
with a loud throbbing of the heart.  It was quiet and the flame of the
candle was quivering, and it was small, dull, but sharp-pointed, like
a crooked sword.

"Are you afraid?" I asked.

The pale chin trembled, but her eyes remained motionless and looked
at me, without blinking, and only now I noticed what unfamiliar, what
terrible eyes they were.  For ten years I had looked into them and
had known them better than my own eyes, and now there was something
new in them which I am unable define.  I would have called it pride,
but there was something different in them, something new, entirely
new.  I took her hand; it was cold.  She grasped my hand firmly and
there was something new, something I had not known before, in her
handclasp.

She had never before clasped my hand as she did this time.

"How long?" I asked.

"About an hour already.  Your brother has gone away.  He was
apparently afraid that you would not let him go, so he went away
quietly.  But I saw it."

It was true then; the time had arrived.  I rose, and, for some
reason, spent a long time washing myself, as was my wont in the
morning before going to work, and my wife held the light.  Then we
put out the light and walked over to the window overlooking the
street.  It was spring; it was May, and the air that came in from the
open window was such as we had never before felt in that old, large
city.  For several days the factories and the roads had been idle;
and the air, free from smoke, was filled with the fragrance of the
fields and the flowering gardens, perhaps with that of the dew.  I do
not know what it is that smells so wonderfully on spring nights when
I go out far beyond the outskirts of the city.  Not a lantern, not a
carriage, not a single sound of the city over the unconcerned stony
surface; if you had closed your eyes you would really have thought
that you were in a village.  There a dog was barking.  I had never
before heard a dog barking in the city, and I laughed for happiness.

"Listen, a dog is barking."

My wife embraced me, and said:

"It is there, on the corner."

We bent over the window-sill, and there, in the transparent, dark
depth, we saw some movement--not people, but movement.  Something was
moving about like a shadow.  Suddenly the blows of a hatchet or a
hammer resounded.  They sounded so cheerful, so resonant, as in a
forest, as on a river when you are mending a boat or building a dam.
And in the presentiment of cheerful, harmonious work, I firmly
embraced my wife, while she looked above the houses, above the roofs,
looked at the young crescent of the moon, which was already setting.
The moon was so young, so strange, even as a young girl who is
dreaming and is afraid to tell her dreams; and it was shining only
for itself.

"When will we have a full moon?..."

"You must not!  You must not!" my wife interrupted.  "You must not
speak of that which will be.  What for?  IT is afraid of words.  Come
here."

It was dark in the room, and we were silent for a long time, without
seeing each other, yet thinking of the same thing.  And when I
started to speak, it seemed to me that some one else was speaking; I
was not afraid, yet the voice of the other one was hoarse, as though
suffocating for thirst.

"What shall it be?"

"And--they?"

"You will be with them.  It will be enough for them to have a
mother.  I cannot remain."

"And I?  Can I?"

I know that she did not stir from her place, but I felt distinctly
that she was going away, that she was far--far away.  I began to feel
so cold, I stretched out my hands--but she pushed them aside.

"People have such a holiday once in a hundred years, and you want to
deprive me of it.  Why?" she said.

"But they may kill you there.  And our children will perish."

"Life will be merciful to me.  But even if they should perish--"

And this was said by her, my wife--a woman with whom I had lived for
ten years.  But yesterday she had known nothing except our children,
and had been filled with fear for them; but yesterday she had caught
with terror the stern symptoms of the future.  What had come over
her?  Yesterday--but I, too, forgot everything that was yesterday.

"Do you want to go with me?"

"Do not be angry"--she thought that I was afraid, angry--"Don't be
angry.  To-night, when they began to knock here, and you were still
sleeping, I suddenly understood that my husband, my children--all
these were simply temporary... I love you, very much"--she found my
hand and shook it with the same new, unfamiliar grasp--"but do you
hear how they are knocking there?  They are knocking, and something
seems to be falling, some kind of walls seem to be falling--and it is
so spacious, so wide, so free.  It is night now, and yet it seems to
me that the sun is shining.  I am thirty years of age, and I am old
already, and yet it seems to me that I am only seventeen, and that I
love some one with my first love--a great, boundless love."

"What a night!" I said.  "It is as if the city were no more.  You
are right, I have also forgotten how old I am."

"They are knocking, and it sounds to me like music, like singing of
which I have always dreamed--all my life.  And I did not know whom it
was that I loved with such a boundless love, which made me feel like
crying and laughing and singing.  There is freedom--do not take my
happiness away, let me die with those who are working there, who are
calling the future so bravely, and who are rousing the dead past from
its grave."

"There is no such thing as time."

"What do you say?"

"There is no such thing as time.  Who are you?  I did not know you.
Are you a human being?"

She burst into such ringing laughter as though she were really only
seventeen years old.

"I did not know you, either.  Are you, too, a human being?  How
strange and how beautiful it is--a human being!"

That which I am writing happened long ago, and those who are
sleeping now in the sleep of grey life and who die without awakening--
those will not believe me: in those days there was no such thing as
time.  The sun was rising and setting, and the hand was moving around
the dial--but time did not exist.  And many other great and wonderful
things happened in those days....  And those who are sleeping now the
sleep of this grey life and who die without awakening, will not
believe me.

"I must go," said I.

"Wait, I will give you something to eat.  You haven't eaten anything
to-day.  See how sensible I am:  I shall go to-morrow.  I shall give
the children away and find you."

"Comrade," said I.

"Yes, comrade."

Through the open windows came the breath of the fields, and silence,
and from time to time, the cheerful strokes of the axe, and I sat by
the table and looked and listened, and everything was so mysteriously
new that I felt like laughing.  I looked at the walls and they seemed
to me to be transparent.  As if embracing all eternity with one glance,
I saw how all these walls had been built, I saw how they were being
destroyed, and I alone always was and always will be.  Everything will
pass, but I shall remain.  And everything seemed to me strange and
queer--so unnatural--the table and the food upon it, and everything
outside of me.  It all seemed to me transparent and light, existing
only temporarily.

"Why don't you eat?" asked my wife.

I smiled:

"Bread--it is so strange."

She glanced at the bread, at the stale, dry crust of bread, and for
some reason her face became sad.  Still continuing to look at it, she
silently adjusted her apron with her hands and her head turned
slightly, very slightly, in the direction where the children were
sleeping.

"Do you feel sorry for them?" I asked.

She shook her head without removing her eyes from the bread.

"No, but I was thinking of what happened in our life before."

How incomprehensible!  As one who awakens from a long sleep, she
surveyed the room with her eyes and all seemed to her so
incomprehensible.  Was this the place where we had lived?

"You were my wife."

"And there are our children."

"Here, beyond the wall, your father died."

"Yes.  He died.  He died without awakening."

The smallest child, frightened at something in her sleep, began to
cry.  And this simple childish cry, apparently demanding something,
sounded so strange amid these phantom walls, while there, below,
people were building barricades.

She cried and demanded--caresses, certain queer words and promises
to soothe her.  And she soon was soothed.

"Well, go!" said my wife in a whisper.

"I should like to kiss them."

"I am afraid you will wake them up."

"No, I will not."

It turned out that the oldest child was awake--he had heard and
understood everything.  He was but nine years old, but he understood
everything--he met me with a deep, stern look.

"Will you take your gun?" he asked thoughtfully and earnestly.

"I will."

"It is behind the stove."

"How do you know?  Well, kiss me.  Will you remember me?"

He jumped up in his bed, in his short little shirt, hot from sleep,
and firmly clasped my neck.  His arms were burning--they were so soft
and delicate.  I lifted his hair on the back of his head and kissed
his little neck.

"Will they kill you?" he whispered right into my ear.

"No, I will come back."

But why did he not cry?  He had cried sometimes when I had simply
left the house for a while:  Is it possible that IT had reached him,
too?  Who knows?  So many strange things happened during the great
days.

I looked at the walls, at the bread, at the candle, at the flame
which had kept flickering, and took my wife by the hand.

"Well--'till we meet again!"

"Yes--'till we meet again!"

That was all.  I went out.  It was dark on the stairway and there
was the odour of old filth.  Surrounded on all sides by the stones
and the darkness, groping down the stairs, I was seized with a
tremendous, powerful and all-absorbing feeling of the new, unknown
and joyous something to which I was going.





ON THE DAY OF THE CRUCIFIXION




On that terrible day, when the universal injustice was committed and
Jesus Christ was crucified in Golgotha among robbers--on that day,
from early morning, Ben-Tovit, a tradesman of Jerusalem, suffered
from an unendurable toothache.  His toothache had commenced on the
day before, toward evening; at first his right jaw started to pain
him, and one tooth, the one right next the wisdom tooth, seemed to
have risen somewhat, and when his tongue touched the tooth, he felt a
slightly painful sensation.  After supper, however, his toothache had
passed, and Ben-Tovit had forgotten all about it--he had made a
profitable deal on that day, had bartered an old donkey for a young,
strong one, so he was very cheerful and paid no heed to any ominous
signs.

And he slept very soundly.  But just before daybreak something began
to disturb him, as if some one were calling him on a very important
matter, and when Ben-Tovit awoke angrily, his teeth were aching,
aching openly and maliciously, causing him an acute, drilling pain.
And he could no longer understand whether it was only the same tooth
that had ached on the previous day, or whether others had joined that
tooth; Ben-Tovit's entire mouth and his head were filled with
terrible sensations of pain, as though he had been forced to chew
thousands of sharp, red-hot nails, he took some water into his mouth
from an earthen jug--for a minute the acuteness of the pain subsided,
his teeth twitched and swayed like a wave, and this sensation was
even pleasant as compared with the other.

Ben-Tovit lay down again, recalled his new donkey, and thought how
happy he would have been if not for his toothache, and he wanted to
fall asleep.  But the water was warm, and five minutes later his
toothache began to rage more severely than ever; Ben-Tovit sat up in
his bed and swayed back and forth like a pendulum.  His face became
wrinkled and seemed to have shrunk, and a drop of cold perspiration
was hanging on his nose, which had turned pale from his sufferings.
Thus, swaying back and forth and groaning for pain, he met the first
rays of the sun, which was destined to see Golgotha and the three
crosses, and grow dim from horror and sorrow.

Ben-Tovit was a good and kind man, who hated any injustice, but when
his wife awoke he said many unpleasant things to her, opening his
mouth with difficulty, and he complained that he was left alone, like
a jackal, to groan and writhe for pain.  His wife met the undeserved
reproaches patiently, for she knew that they came not from an angry
heart--and she brought him numerous good remedies: rats' litter to be
applied to his cheek, some strong liquid in which a scorpion was
preserved, and a real chip of the tablets that Moses had broken.  He
began to feel a little better from the rats' litter, but not for
long, also from the liquid and the stone, but the pain returned each
time with renewed intensity.

During the moments of rest Ben-Tovit consoled himself with the
thought of the little donkey, and he dreamed of him, and when he felt
worse he moaned, scolded his wife, and threatened to dash his head
against a rock if the pain should not subside.  He kept pacing back
and forth on the flat roof of his house from one corner to the other,
feeling ashamed to come close to the side facing the street, for his
head was tied around with a kerchief like that of a woman.  Several
times children came running to him and told him hastily about Jesus
of Nazareth.  Ben-Tovit paused, listened to them for a while, his
face wrinkled, but then he stamped his foot angrily and chased them
away.  He was a kind man and he loved children, but now he was angry
at them for bothering him with trifles.

It was disagreeable to him that a large crowd had gathered in the
street and on the neighbouring roofs, doing nothing and looking
curiously at Ben-Tovit, who had his head tied around with a kerchief
like a woman.  He was about to go down, when his wife said to him:

"Look, they are leading robbers there.  Perhaps that will divert you."

"Let me alone.  Don't you see how I am suffering?" Ben-Tovit
answered angrily.

But there was a vague promise in his wife's words that there might
be a relief for his toothache, so he walked over to the parapet
unwillingly.  Bending his head on one side, closing one eye, and
supporting his cheek with his hand, his face assumed a squeamish,
weeping expression, and he looked down to the street.

On the narrow street, going uphill, an enormous crowd was moving
forward in disorder, covered with dust and shouting uninterruptedly.
In the middle of the crowd walked the criminals, bending down under
the weight of their crosses, and over them the scourges of the Roman
soldiers were wriggling about like black snakes.  One of the men, he
of the long light hair, in a torn blood-stained cloak, stumbled over
a stone which was thrown under his feet, and he fell.  The shouting
grew louder, and the crowd, like coloured sea water, closed in about
the man on the ground.  Ben-Tovit suddenly shuddered for pain; he
felt as though some one had pierced a red-hot needle into his tooth
and turned it there; he groaned and walked away from the parapet,
angry and squeamishly indifferent.

"How they are shouting!" he said enviously, picturing to himself
their wide-open mouths with strong, healthy teeth, and how he himself
would have shouted if he had been well.  This intensified his
toothache, and he shook his muffled head frequently, and roared:
"Moo-Moo...."

"They say that He restored sight to the blind," said his wife, who
remained standing at the parapet, and she threw down a little
cobblestone near the place where Jesus, lifted by the whips, was
moving slowly.

"Of course, of course!  He should have cured my toothache," replied
Ben-Tovit ironically, and he added bitterly with irritation:  "What
dust they have kicked up!  Like a herd of cattle!  They should all be
driven away with a stick!  Take me down, Sarah!"

The wife proved to be right.  The spectacle had diverted Ben-Tovit
slightly--perhaps it was the rats' litter that had helped after all--
he succeeded in falling asleep.  When he awoke, his toothache had
passed almost entirely, and only a little inflammation had formed
over his right jaw.  His wife told him that it was not noticeable at
all, but Ben-Tovit smiled cunningly--he knew how kind-hearted his
wife was and how fond she was of telling him pleasant things.

Samuel, the tanner, a neighbour of Ben-Tovit's, came in, and Ben-Tovit
led him to see the new little donkey and listened proudly to the warm
praises for himself and his animal.

Then, at the request of the curious Sarah, the three went to Golgotha
to see the people who had been crucified.  On the way Ben-Tovit told
Samuel in detail how he had felt a pain in his right jaw on the day
before, and how he awoke at night with a terrible toothache.  To
illustrate it he made a martyr's face, closing his eyes, shook his
head, and groaned while the grey-bearded Samuel nodded his head
compassionately and said:

"Oh, how painful it must have been!"

Ben-Tovit was pleased with Samuel's attitude, and he repeated the
story to him, then went back to the past, when his first tooth was
spoiled on the left side.  Thus, absorbed in a lively conversation,
they reached Golgotha.  The sun, which was destined to shine upon the
world on that terrible day, had already set beyond the distant hills,
and in the west a narrow, purple-red strip was burning, like a stain
of blood.  The crosses stood out darkly but vaguely against this
background, and at the foot of the middle cross white kneeling
figures were seen indistinctly.

The crowd had long dispersed; it was growing chilly, and after a
glance at the crucified men, Ben-Tovit took Samuel by the arm and
carefully turned him in the direction toward his house.  He felt that
he was particularly eloquent just then, and he was eager to finish
the story of his toothache.  Thus they walked, and Ben-Tovit made a
martyr's face, shook his head and groaned skilfully, while Samuel
nodded compassionately and uttered exclamations from time to time,
and from the deep, narrow defiles, out of the distant, burning
plains, rose the black night.  It seemed as though it wished to hide
from the view of heaven the great crime of the earth.





THE SERPENT'S STORY




Hush!  Hush!  Hush!  Come closer to me.  Look into my eyes!

I always was a fascinating creature, tender, sensitive, and
grateful.  I was wise and I was noble.  And I am so flexible in the
writhing of my graceful body that it will afford you joy to watch my
easy dance.  Now I shall coil up into a ring, flash my scales dimly,
wind myself around tenderly and clasp my steel body in my gentle,
cold embraces.  One in many!  One in many!

Hush!  Hush!  Look into my eyes!

You do not like my writhing and my straight, open look?  Oh, my head
is heavy--therefore I sway about so quietly.  Oh, my head is heavy--
therefore I look so straight ahead, as I sway about.  Come closer to
me.  Give me a little warmth; stroke my wise forehead with your
fingers; in its fine outlines you will find the form of a cup into
which flows wisdom, the dew of the evening-flowers.  When I draw the
air by my writhing, a trace is left in it--the design of the finest
of webs, the web of dream-charms, the enchantment of noiseless
movements, the inaudible hiss of gliding lines.  I am silent and I
sway myself.  I look ahead and I sway myself.  What strange burden am
I carrying on my neck?

I love you.

I always was a fascinating creature, and loved tenderly those I
loved.  Come closer to me.  Do you see my white, sharp, enchanting
little teeth?  Kissing, I used to bite.  Not painfully, no--just a
trifle.  Caressing tenderly, I used to bite a little, until the first
bright little drops appeared, until a cry came forth which sounded
like the laugh produced by tickling.  That was very pleasant--think
not it was unpleasant; otherwise they whom I kissed would not come
back for more kisses.  It is now that I can kiss only once--how sad--
only once!  One kiss for each--how little for a loving heart, for a
sensitive soul, striving for a great union!  But it is only I, the
sad one, who kiss but once, and must seek love again--he knows no
other love any more: to him my one, tender, nuptial kiss is
inviolable and eternal.  I am speaking to you frankly; and when my
story is ended--I will kiss you.

I love you.

Look into my eyes.  Is it not true that mine is a magnificent, a
powerful look?  A firm look and a straight look?  And it is
steadfast, like steel forced against your heart.  I look ahead and
sway myself, I look and I enchant; in my green eyes I gather your
fear, your loving, fatigued, submissive longing.  Come closer to me.
Now I am a queen and you dare not fail to see my beauty; but there
was a strange time--Ah, what a strange time!  Ah, what a strange
time!  At the mere recollection I am agitated--Ah, what a strange
time!  No one loved me.  No one respected me.  I was persecuted with
cruel ferocity, trampled in the mud and jeered--Ah, what a strange
time it was!  One in many!  One in many!

I say to you:  Come closer to me.

Why did they not love me?  At that time I was also a fascinating
creature, but without malice; I was gentle and I danced wonderfully.
But they tortured me.  They burnt me with fire.  Heavy and coarse
beasts trampled upon me with the dull steps of terribly heavy feet;
cold tusks of bloody mouths tore my tender body--and in my powerless
sorrow I bit the sand, I swallowed the dust of the ground--I was
dying of despair.  Crushed, I was dying every day.  Every day I was
dying of despair.  Oh, what a terrible time that was!  The stupid
forest has forgotten everything--it does not remember that time, but
you have pity on me.  Come closer to me.  Have pity on me, on the
offended, on the sad one, on the loving one, on the one who dances so
beautifully.

I love you.

How could I defend myself?  I had only my white, wonderful, sharp
little teeth--they were good only for kisses.  How could I defend
myself?  It is only now that I carry on my neck this terrible burden
of a head, and my look is commanding and straight, but then my head
was light and my eyes gazed meekly.  Then I had no poison yet.  Oh,
my head is so heavy and it is hard for me to hold it up!  Oh, I have
grown tired of my look--two stones are in my forehead, and these are
my eyes.  Perhaps the glittering stones are precious--but it is hard
to carry them instead of gentle eyes--they oppress my brain.  It is
so hard for my head!  I look ahead and sway myself; I see you in a
green mist--you are so far away.  Come closer to me.

You see, even in sorrow I am beautiful, and my look is languid
because of my love.  Look into my pupil; I will narrow and widen it,
and give it a peculiar glitter--the twinkling of a star at night, the
playfulness of all precious stones--of diamonds, of green emeralds,
of yellowish topaz, of blood-red rubies.  Look into my eyes:  It is
I, the queen--I am crowning myself, and that which is glittering,
burning and glowing--that robs you of your reason, your freedom and
your life--it is poison.  It is a drop of my poison.

How has it happened?  I do not know.  I did not bear ill-will to the
living.

I lived and suffered.  I was silent.  I languished.  I hid myself
hurriedly when I could hide myself; I crawled away hastily.  But they
have never seen me weep--I cannot weep; and my easy dance grew ever
faster and ever more beautiful.  Alone in the stillness, alone in the
thicket, I danced with sorrow in my heart--they despised my swift
dance and would have been glad to kill me as I danced.  Suddenly my
head began to grow heavy--How strange it is!--My head grew heavy.
Just as small and beautiful, just as wise and beautiful, it had
suddenly grown terribly heavy; it bent my neck to the ground, and
caused me pain.  Now I am somewhat used to it, but at first it was
dreadfully awkward and painful.  I thought I was sick.

And suddenly...  Come closer to me.  Look into my eyes.  Hush!
Hush!  Hush!

And suddenly my look became heavy--it became fixed and strange--I
was even frightened!  I want to glance and turn away--but cannot.  I
always look straight ahead, I pierce with my eyes ever more deeply, I
am as though petrified.  Look into my eyes.  It is as though I am
petrified, as though everything I look upon is petrified.  Look into
my eyes.

I love you.  Do not laugh at my frank story, or I shall be angry.
Every hour I open my sensitive heart, for all my efforts are in vain--
I am alone.  My one and last kiss is full of ringing sorrow--and the
one I love is not here, and I seek love again, and I tell my tale in
vain--my heart cannot bare itself, and the poison torments me and my
head grows heavier.  Am I not beautiful in my despair?  Come closer
to me.

I love you.

Once I was bathing in a stagnant swamp in the forest--I love to be
clean--it is a sign of noble birth, and I bathe frequently.  While
bathing, dancing in the water, I saw my reflection, and as always,
fell in love with myself.  I am so fond of the beautiful and the
wise!  And suddenly I saw--on my forehead, among my other inborn
adornments, a new, strange sign--Was it not this sign that has
brought the heaviness, the petrified look, and the sweet taste in my
mouth?  Here a cross is darkly outlined on my forehead--right here--
look.  Come closer to me.  Is this not strange?  But I did not
understand it at that time, and I liked it.  Let there be no more
adornment.  And on the same day, on that same terrible day, when the
cross appeared, my first kiss became also my last--my kiss became
fatal.  One in many!  One in many!

Oh!

You love precious stones, but think, my beloved, how far more
precious is a little drop of my poison.  It is such a little drop.--
Have you ever seen it?  Never, never.  But you shall find it out.
Consider, my beloved, how much suffering, painful humiliation,
powerless rage devoured me:  I had to experience in order to bring
forth this little drop.  I am a queen!  I am a queen!  In one drop,
brought forth by myself, I carry death unto the living, and my
kingdom is limitless, even as grief is limitless, even as death is
limitless.  I am queen!  My look is inexorable.  My dance is
terrible!  I am beautiful!  One in many!  One in many!

Oh!

Do not fall.  My story is not yet ended.  Come closer to me.

And then I crawled into the stupid forest, into my green dominion.

Now it is a new way, a terrible way!  I was kind like a queen; and
like a queen I bowed graciously to the right and to the left.  And
they--they ran away!  Like a queen I bowed benevolently to the right
and to the left--and they, queer people--they ran away.  What do you
think?  Why did they run away?  What do you think?  Look into my
eyes.  Do you see in them a certain glimmer and a flash?  The rays of
my crown blind your eyes, you are petrified, you are lost.  I shall
soon dance my last dance---do not fall.  I shall coil into rings, I
shall flash my scales dimly, and I shall clasp my steel body in my
gentle, cold embraces.  Here I am!  Accept my only kiss, my nuptial
kiss--in it is the deadly grief of all oppressed lives.  One in many!
One in many!

Bend down to me.  I love you.

Die!





LOVE, FAITH AND HOPE




He loved.

According to his passport, he was called Max Z.  But as it was
stated in the same passport that he had no special peculiarities
about his features, I prefer to call him Mr. N+1.  He represented a
long line of young men who possess wavy, dishevelled locks, straight,
bold, and open looks, well-formed and strong bodies, and very large
and powerful hearts.

All these youths have loved and perpetuated their love.  Some of
them have succeeded in engraving it on the tablets of history, like
Henry IV; others, like Petrarch, have made literary preserves of it;
some have availed themselves for that purpose of the newspapers,
wherein the happenings of the day are recorded, and where they
figured among those who had strangled themselves, shot themselves, or
who had been shot by others; still others, the happiest and most
modest of all, perpetuated their love by entering it in the birth
records--by creating posterity.

The love of N+1 was as strong as death, as a certain writer put it;
as strong as life, he thought.

Max was firmly convinced that he was the first to have discovered
the method of loving so intensely, so unrestrainedly, so passionately,
and he regarded with contempt all who had loved before him.  Still
more, he was convinced that even after him no one would love as he
did, and he felt sorry that with his death the secret of true love
would be lost to mankind.  But, being a modest young man, he attributed
part of his achievement to her--to his beloved.  Not that she was
perfection itself, but she came very close to it, as close as an
ideal can come to reality.

There were prettier women than she, there were wiser women, but was
there ever a better woman?  Did there ever exist a woman on whose
face was so clearly and distinctly written that she alone was worthy
of love--of infinite, pure, and devoted love?  Max knew that there
never were, and that there never would be such women.  In this
respect, he had no special peculiarities, just as Adam did not have
them, just as you, my reader, do not have them.  Beginning with
Grandmother Eve and ending with the woman upon whom your eyes were
directed--before you read these lines--the same inscription is to be
clearly and distinctly read on the face of every woman at a certain
time.  The difference is only in the quality of the ink.

A very nasty day set in--it was Monday or Tuesday--when Max noticed
with a feeling of great terror that the inscription upon the dear
face was fading.  Max rubbed his eyes, looked first from a distance,
then from all sides; but the fact was undeniable--the inscription was
fading.  Soon the last letter also disappeared--the face was white
like the recently whitewashed wall of a new house.  But he was
convinced that the inscription had disappeared not of itself, but
that some one had wiped it off.  Who?

Max went to his friend, John N.  He knew and he felt sure that such
a true, disinterested, and honest friend there never was and never
would be.  And in this respect, too, as you see, Max had no special
peculiarities.  He went to his friend for the purpose of taking his
advice concerning the mysterious disappearance of the inscription,
and found John N. exactly at the moment when he was wiping away that
inscription by his kisses.  It was then that the records of the local
occurrences were enriched by another unfortunate incident, entitled
"An Attempt at Suicide."

                 .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

It is said that death always comes in due time.  Evidently, that
time had not yet arrived for Max, for he remained alive--that is, he
ate, drank, walked, borrowed money and did not return it, and
altogether he showed by a series of psycho-physiological acts that he
was a living being, possessing a stomach, a will, and a mind--but his
soul was dead, or, to be more exact, it was absorbed in lethargic
sleep.  The sound of human speech reached his ears, his eyes saw
tears and laughter, but all that did not stir a single echo, a single
emotion in his soul.  I do not know what space of time had elapsed.
It may have been one year, and it may have been ten years, for the
length of such intermissions in life depends on how quickly the actor
succeeds in changing his costume.

One beautiful day--it was Wednesday or Thursday--Max awakened
completely.  A careful and guarded liquidation of his spiritual
property made it clear that a fair piece of Max's soul, the part
which contained his love for woman and for his friends, was dead,
like a paralysis-stricken hand or foot.  But what remained was,
nevertheless, enough for life.  That was love for and faith in
mankind.  Then Max, having renounced personal happiness, started to
work for the happiness of others.

That was a new phase--he believed.

All the evil that is tormenting the world seemed to him to be
concentrated in a "red flower," in one red flower.  It was but
necessary to tear it down, and the incessant, heart-rending cries and
moans which rise to the indifferent sky from all points of the earth,
like its natural breathing, would be silenced.  The evil of the
world, he believed, lay in the evil will and in the madness of the
people.  They themselves were to blame for being unhappy, and they
could be happy if they wished.  This seemed so clear and simple that
Max was dumfounded in his amazement at human stupidity.  Humanity
reminded him of a crowd huddled together in a spacious temple and
panic-stricken at the cry of "Fire!"

Instead of passing calmly through the wide doors and saving
themselves, the maddened people, with the cruelty of frenzied beasts,
cry and roar, crush one another and perish--not from the fire (for it
is only imaginary), but from their own madness.  It is enough
sometimes when one sensible, firm word is uttered to this crowd--the
crowd calms down and imminent death is thus averted.  Let, then, a
hundred calm, rational voices be raised to mankind, showing them
where to escape and where the danger lies--and heaven will be
established on earth, if not immediately, then at least within a very
brief time.

Max began to utter his word of wisdom.  How he uttered it you will
learn later.  The name of Max was mentioned in the newspapers,
shouted in the market places, blessed and cursed; whole books were
written on what Max N+1 had done, what he was doing, and what he
intended to do.  He appeared here and there and everywhere.  He was
seen standing at the head of the crowd, commanding it; he was seen in
chains and under the knife of the guillotine.  In this respect Max
did not have any special peculiarities, either.  A preacher of
humility and peace, a stern bearer of fire and sword, he was the same
Max--Max the believer.  But while he was doing all this, time kept
passing on.  His nerves were shattered; his wavy locks became thin
and his head began to look like that of Elijah the Prophet; here and
there he felt a piercing pain....

The earth continued to turn light-mindedly around the sun, now
coming nearer to it, now retreating coquettishly, and giving the
impression that it fixed all its attention upon its household friend,
the moon; the days were replaced by other days, and the dark nights
by other dark nights, with such pedantic German punctuality and
correctness that all the artistic natures were compelled to move over
to the far north by degrees, where the devil himself would break his
head endeavouring to distinguish between day and night--when suddenly
something happened to Max.

Somehow it happened that Max became misunderstood.  He had calmed
the crowd by his words of wisdom many a time before and had saved
them from mutual destruction but now he was not understood.  They
thought that it was he who had shouted "Fire!"  With all the
eloquence of which he was capable he assured them that he was
exerting all his efforts for their sake alone; that he himself needed
absolutely nothing, for he was alone, childless; that he was ready to
forget the sad misunderstanding and serve them again with faith and
truth--but all in vain.  They would not trust him.  And in this
respect Max did not have any special peculiarities, either.  The sad
incident ended for Max in a new intermission.

                 .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

Max was alive, as was positively established by medical experts, who
had made a series of simple tests.  Thus, when they pricked a needle
into his foot, he shook his foot and tried to remove the needle.  When
they put food before him, he ate it, but he did not walk and did not
ask for any loans, which clearly testified to the complete decline of
his energy.  His soul was dead--as much as the soul can be dead while
the body is alive.  To Max all that he had loved and believed in was
dead.  Impenetrable gloom wrapped his soul.  There were neither feelings
in it, nor desires, nor thoughts.  And there was not a more unhappy man
in the world than Max, if he was a man at all.

But he was a man.

According to the calendar, it was Friday or Saturday, when Max
awakened as from a prolonged sleep.  With the pleasant sensation of
an owner to whom his property has been restored which had wrongly
been taken from him, Max realised that he was once more in possession
of all his five senses.

His sight reported to him that he was all alone, in a place which
might in justice be called either a room or a chimney.  Each wall of
the room was about a metre and a half wide and about ten metres high.
The walls were straight, white, smooth, with no openings, except one
through which food was brought to Max.  An electric lamp was burning
brightly on the ceiling.  It was burning all the time, so that Max
did not know now what darkness was.  There was no furniture in the
room, and Max had to lie on the stone floor.  He lay curled together,
as the narrowness of the room did not permit him to stretch himself.

His sense of hearing reported to him that until the day of his death
he would not leave this room....  Having reported this, his hearing
sank into inactivity, for not the slightest sound came from without,
except the sounds which Max himself produced, tossing about, or
shouting until he was hoarse, until he lost his voice.

Max looked into himself.  In contrast to the outward light which
never went out he saw within himself impenetrable, heavy, and
motionless darkness.  In that darkness his love and faith were buried.

Max did not know whether time was moving or whether it stood
motionless.  The same even, white light poured down on him--the same
silence and quiet.  Only by the beating of his heart Max could judge
that Chronos had not left his chariot.  His body was aching ever more
from the unnatural position in which it lay, and the constant light
and silence were growing ever more tormenting.  How happy are they
for whom night exists, near whom people are shouting, making noise,
beating drums; who may sit on a chair, with their feet hanging down,
or lie with their feet outstretched, placing the head in a corner and
covering it with the hands in order to create the illusion of darkness.

Max made an effort to recall and to picture to himself what there is
in life; human faces, voices, the stars....  He knew that his eyes
would never in life see that again.  He knew it, and yet he lived.
He could have destroyed himself, for there is no position in which a
man can not do that, but instead Max worried about his health, trying
to eat, although he had no appetite, solving mathematical problems to
occupy his mind so as not to lose his reason.  He struggled against
death as if it were not his deliverer, but his enemy; and as if life
were to him not the worst of infernal tortures--but love, faith, and
happiness.  Gloom in the Past, the grave in the Future, and infernal
tortures in the Present--and yet he lived.  Tell me, John N., where
did he get the strength for that?

He hoped.





THE OCEAN




CHAPTER I


A misty February twilight is descending over the ocean.  The newly
fallen snow has melted and the warm air is heavy and damp.  The
northwestern wind from the sea is driving it silently toward the
mainland, bringing in its wake a sharply fragrant mixture of brine,
of boundless space, of undisturbed, free and mysterious distances.

In the sky, where the sun is setting, a noiseless destruction of an
unknown city, of an unknown land, is taking place; structures,
magnificent palaces with towers, are crumbling; mountains are
silently splitting asunder and, bending slowly, are tumbling down.
But no cry, no moan, no crash of the fall reaches the earth--the
monstrous play of shadows is noiseless; and the great surface of the
ocean, as though ready for something, as though waiting for
something, reflecting it faintly, listens to it in silence.

Silence reigns also in the fishermen's settlement.  The fishermen
have gone fishing; the children are sleeping and only the restless
women, gathered in front of the houses, are talking softly, lingering
before going to sleep, beyond which there is always the unknown.

The light of the sea and the sky behind the houses, and the houses
and their bark roofs are black and sharp, and there is no
perspective: the houses that are far and those that are near seem to
stand side by side as if attached to one another, the roofs and the
walls embracing one another, pressing close to one another, seized
with the same uneasiness before the eternal unknown.

Right here there is also a little church, its side wall formed
crudely of rough granite, with a deep window which seems to be
concealing itself.

A cautious sound of women's voices is heard, softened by uneasiness
and by the approaching night.

"We can sleep peacefully to-night.  The sea is calm and the rollers
are breaking like the clock in the steeple of old Dan."

"They will come back with the morning tide.  My husband told me that
they will come back with the morning tide."

"Perhaps they will come back with the evening tide.  It is better
for us to think they will come back in the evening, so that our
waiting will not be in vain.

"But I must build a fire in the stove."

"When the men are away from home, one does not feel like starting a
fire.  I never build a fire, even when I am awake; it seems to me
that fire brings a storm.  It is better to be quiet and silent."

"And listen to the wind?  No, that is terrible."

"I love the fire.  I should like to sleep near the fire, but my
husband does not allow it."

"Why doesn't old Dan come here?  It is time to strike the hour."

"Old Dan will play in the church to-night; he cannot bear such
silence as this.  When the sea is roaring, old Dan hides himself and
is silent--he is afraid of the sea.  But, as soon as the waves calm
down, Dan crawls out quietly and sits down to play his organ."

The women laugh softly.

"He reproaches the sea."

"He is complaining to God against it.  He knows how to complain
well.  One feels like crying when he tells God about those who have
perished at sea.  Mariet, have you seen Dan to-day?  Why are you
silent, Mariet?"

Mariet is the adopted daughter of the abbot, in whose house old Dan,
the organist, lives.  Absorbed in thought, she does not hear the
question.

"Mariet, do you hear?  Anna is asking you whether you have seen Dan
to-day."

"Yes, I think I have.  I don't remember.  He is in his room.  He
does not like to leave his room when father goes fishing."

"Dan is fond of the city priests.  He cannot get used to the idea of
a priest who goes fishing, like an ordinary fisherman, and who goes
to sea with our husbands."

"He is simply afraid of the sea."

"You may say what you like, but I believe we have the very best
priest in the world."

"That's true.  I fear him, but I love him as a father."

"May God forgive me, but I would have been proud and always happy,
if I were his adopted daughter.  Do you hear, Mariet?"

The women laugh softly and tenderly.

"Do you hear, Mariet?"

"I do.  But aren't you tired of always laughing at the same thing?
Yes, I am his daughter--Is it so funny that you will laugh all your
life at it?"

The women commence to justify themselves confusedly.

"But he laughs at it himself."

"The abbot is fond of jesting.  He says so comically:  'My adopted
daughter,' and then he strikes himself with his fist and shouts:
'She's my real daughter, not my adopted daughter.  She's my real
daughter.'"

"I have never known my mother, but this laughter would have been
unpleasant to her.  I feel it," says Mariet.

The women grow silent.  The breakers strike against the shore dully
with the regularity of a great pendulum.  The unknown city, wrapped
with fire and smoke, is still being destroyed in the sky; yet it does
not fall down completely; and the sea is waiting.  Mariet lifts her
lowered head.

"What were you going to say, Mariet?"

"Didn't he pass here?" asks Mariet in a low voice.

Another woman answers timidly:

"Hush!  Why do you speak of him?  I fear him.  No, he did not pass
this way."

"He did.  I saw from the window that he passed by."

"You are mistaken; it was some one else."

"Who else could that be?  Is it possible to make a mistake, if you
have once seen him walk?  No one walks as he does."

"Naval officers, Englishmen, walk like that."

"No.  Haven't I seen naval officers in the city?  They walk firmly,
but openly; even a girl could trust them."

"Oh, look out!"

Frightened and cautious laughter.

"No, don't laugh.  He walks without looking at the ground; he puts
his feet down as if the ground itself must take them cautiously and
place them."

"But if there's a stone on the road?  We have many stones here."

"He does not bend down, nor does he hide his head when a strong wind
blows."

"Of course not.  Of course not.  He does not hide his head."

"Is it true that he is handsome?  Who has seen him at close range?"

"I," says Mariet.

"No, no, don't speak of him; I shall not be able to sleep all night.
Since they settled on that hill, in that accursed castle, I know no
rest; I am dying of fear.  You are also afraid.  Confess it."

"Well, not all of us are afraid."

"What have they come here for?  There are two of them.  What is
there for them to do here in our poor land, where we have nothing but
stones and the sea?"

"They drink gin.  The sailor comes every morning for gin."

"They are simply drunkards who don't want anybody to disturb their
drinking.  When the sailor passes along the street he leaves behind
him an odour as of an open bottle of rum."

"But is that their business--drinking gin?  I fear them.  Where is
the ship that brought them here?  They came from the sea."

"I saw the ship," says Mariet.

The women begin to question her in amazement.

"You?  Why, then, didn't you say anything about it?  Tell us what
you know."

Mariet maintains silence.  Suddenly one of the women exclaims:

"Ah, look!  They have lit a lamp.  There is a light in the castle!"

On the left, about half a mile away from the village, a faint light
flares up, a red little coal in the dark blue of the twilight and the
distance.  There upon a high rock, overhanging the sea, stands an
ancient castle, a grim heritage of grey and mysterious antiquity.
Long destroyed, long ruined, it blends with the rocks, continuing and
delusively ending them by the broken, dented line of its batteries,
its shattered roofs, its half-crumbled towers.  Now the rocks and the
castle are covered with a smoky shroud of twilight.  They seem airy,
devoid of any weight, and almost as fantastic as those monstrous
heaps of structures which are piled up and which are falling so
noiselessly in the sky.  But while the others are falling this one
stands, and a live light reddens against the deep blue--and it is
just as strange a sight as if a human hand were to kindle a light in
the clouds.

Turning their heads in that direction, the women look on with
frightened eyes.

"Do you see," says one of them.  "It is even worse than a light on a
cemetery.  Who needs a light among the tombstones?"

"It is getting cold toward night and the sailor must have thrown
some branches into the fireplace, that's all.  At least, I think so,"
says Mariet.

"And I think that the abbot should have gone there with holy water
long ago."

"Or with the gendarmes!  If that isn't the devil himself, it is
surely one of his assistants."

"It is impossible to live peacefully with such neighbours close by."

"I am afraid for the children."

"And for your soul?"

Two elderly women rise silently and go away.  Then a third, an old
woman, also rises.

"We must ask the abbot whether it isn't a sin to look at such a light."

She goes off.  The smoke in the sky is ever increasing and the fire
is subsiding, and the unknown city is already near its dark end.  The
sea odour is growing ever sharper and stronger.  Night is coming from
the shore.

Their heads turned, the women watch the departing old woman.  Then
they turn again toward the light.

Mariet, as though defending some one, says softly:

"There can't be anything bad in light.  For there is light in the
candles on God's altar."

"But there is also fire for Satan in hell," says another old woman,
heavily and angrily, and then goes off.  Now four remain, all young
girls.

"I am afraid," says one, pressing close to her companion.

The noiseless and cold conflagration in the sky is ended; the city
is destroyed; the unknown land is in ruins.  There are no longer any
walls or falling towers; a heap of pale blue gigantic shapes have
fallen silently into the abyss of the ocean and the night.  A young
little star glances at the earth with frightened eyes; it feels like
coming out of the clouds near the castle, and because of its inmost
neighbourship the heavy castle grows darker, and the light in its
window seems redder and darker.

"Good night, Mariet," says the girl who sat alone, and then she goes
off.

"Let us also go; it is getting cold," say the other two, rising.
"Good night, Mariet."

"Good night."

"Why are you alone, Mariet?  Why are you alone, Mariet, in the
daytime and at night, on week days and on merry holidays?  Do you
love to think of your betrothed?"

"Yes, I do.  I love to think of Philipp."

The girl laughs.

"But you don't want to see him.  When he goes out to sea, you look
at the sea for hours; when he comes back--you are not there.  Where
are you hiding yourself?"

"I love to think of Philipp."

"Like a blind man he gropes among the houses, forever calling:
'Mariet!  Mariet!  Have you not seen Mariet?'"

They go off laughing and repeating:

"Good night, Mariet.  'Have you not seen Mariet!  Mariet!'"

The girl is left alone.  She looks at the light in the castle.  She
hears soft, irresolute footsteps.

Old Dan, of small stature, slim, a coughing old man with a clean-shaven
face, comes out from behind the church.  Because of his irresoluteness,
or because of the weakness of his eyes, he steps uncertainly, touching
the ground cautiously and with a certain degree of fear.

"Oho!  Oho!"

"Is that you, Dan?"

"The sea is calm, Dan.  Are you going to play to-night?"

"Oho!  I shall ring the bell seven times.  Seven times I shall ring
it and send to God seven of His holy hours."

He takes the rope of the bell and strikes the hour--seven ringing
and slow strokes.  The wind plays with them, it drops them to the
ground, but before they touch it, it catches them tenderly, sways
them softly and with a light accompaniment of whistling carries them
off to the dark coast.

"Oh, no!" mutters Dan.  "Bad hours, they fall to the ground.  They
are not His holy hours and He will send them back.  Oh, a storm is
coming!  O Lord, have mercy on those who are perishing at sea!"

He mutters and coughs.

"Dan, I have seen the ship again to-day.  Do you hear, Dan?"

"Many ships are going out to sea."

"But this one had black sails.  It was again going toward the sun."

"Many ships are going out to sea.  Listen, Mariet, there was once a
wise king--Oh, how wise he was!--and he commanded that the sea be
lashed with chains.  Oho!"

"I know, Dan.  You told me about it."

"Oho, with chains!  But it did not occur to him to christen the sea.
Why did it not occur to him to do that, Mariet?  Ah, why did he not
think of it?  We have no such kings now."

"What would have happened, Dan?"

"Oho!"

He whispers softly:

"All the rivers and the streams have already been christened, and
the cross of the Lord has touched even many stagnant swamps; only the
sea remained--that nasty, salty, deep pool."

"Why do you scold it?  It does not like to be scolded," Mariet
reproaches him.

"Oho!  Let the sea not like it--I am not afraid of it.  The sea
thinks it is also an organ and music for God.  It is a nasty,
hissing, furious pool.  A salty spit of satan.  Fie!  Fie!  Fie!"

He goes to the doors at the entrance of the church muttering
angrily, threatening, as though celebrating some victory:

"Oho!  Oho!"

"Dan!"

"Go home."

"Dan!  Why don't you light candles when you play?  Dan, I don't love
my betrothed.  Do you hear, Dan?"

Dan turns his head unwillingly.

"I have heard it long ago, Mariet.  Tell it to your father."

"Where is my mother, Dan?"

"Oho!  You are mad again, Mariet?  You are gazing too much at the
sea--yes.  I am going to tell--I am going to tell your father, yes."

He enters the church.  Soon the sounds of the organ are heard.
Faint in the first, long-drawn, deeply pensive chords, they rapidly
gain strength.  And with a passionate sadness, their human melodies
now wrestle with the dull and gloomy plaintiveness of the tireless
surf.  Like seagulls in a storm, the sounds soar amidst the high
waves, unable to rise higher on their overburdened wings.  The stern
ocean holds them captive by its wild and eternal charms.  But when
they have risen, the lowered ocean roars more dully; now they rise
still higher--and the heavy, almost voiceless pile of water is
shaking helplessly.  Varied voices resound through the expanse of the
resplendent distances.  Day has one sorrow, night has another sorrow,
and the proud, ever rebellious, black ocean suddenly seems to become
an eternal slave.

Her cheek pressed against the cold stone of the wall, Mariet is
listening, all alone.  She is growing reconciled to something; she is
grieving ever more quietly.

Suddenly, firm footsteps are heard on the road; the cobblestones are
creaking under the vigorous steps--and a man appears from behind the
church.  He walks slowly and sternly, like those who do not roam in
vain, and who know the earth from end to end.  He carries his hat in
his hands; he is thinking of something, looking ahead.  On his broad
shoulders is set a round, strong head, with short hair; his dark
profile is stern and commandingly haughty, and, although the man is
dressed in a partly military uniform, he does not subject his body to
the discipline of his clothes, but masters it as a free man.  The
folds of his clothes fall submissively.

Mariet greets him:

"Good evening."

He walks on quite a distance, then stops and turns his head slowly.
He waits silently, as though regretting to part with his silence.

"Did you say 'Good evening' to me?" he asks at last.

"Yes, to you.  Good evening."

He looks at her silently.

"Well, good evening.  This is the first time I have been greeted in
this land, and I was surprised when I heard your voice.  Come nearer
to me.  Why don't you sleep when all are sleeping?  Who are you?"

"I am the daughter of the abbot of this place."

He laughs:

"Have priests children?  Or are there special priests in your land?"

"Yes, the priests are different here."

"Now, I recall, Khorre told me something about the priest of this
place."

"Who is Khorre?"

"My sailor.  The one who buys gin in your settlement."

He suddenly laughs again and continues:

"Yes, he told me something.  Was it your father who cursed the Pope
and declared his own church independent?"

"Yes."

"And he makes his own prayers?  And goes to sea with the fishermen?
And punishes with his own hands those who disobey him?"

"Yes.  I am his daughter.  My name is Mariet.  And what is your name?"

"I have many names.  Which one shall I tell you?"

"The one by which you were christened."

"What makes you think that I was christened?"

"Then tell me the name by which your mother called you."

"What makes you think that I had a mother?  I do not know my mother."

Mariet says softly:

"Neither do I know my mother."

Both are silent.  They look at each other kindly.

"Is that so?" he says.  "You, too, don't know your mother?  Well,
then, call me Haggart."

"Haggart?"

"Yes.  Do you like the name?  I have invented it myself--Haggart.
It's a pity that you have been named already.  I would have invented
a fine name for you."

Suddenly he frowned.

"Tell me, Mariet, why is your land so mournful?  I walk along your
paths and only the cobblestones creak under my feet.  And on both
sides are huge rocks."

"That is on the road to the castle--none of us ever go there.  Is it
true that these stones stop the passersby with the question:  'Where
are you going?'"

"No, they are mute.  Why is your land so mournful?  It is almost a
week since I've seen my shadow.  It is impossible!  I don't see my
shadow."

"Our land is very cheerful and full of joy.  It is still winter now,
but soon spring will come, and sunshine will come back with it.  You
shall see it, Haggart."

He speaks with contempt:

"And you are sitting and waiting calmly for its return?  You must be
a fine set of people!  Ah, if I only had a ship!"

"What would you have done?"

He looks at her morosely and shakes his head suspiciously.

"You are too inquisitive, little girl.  Has any one sent you over
to me?"

"No.  What do you need a ship for?"

Haggart laughs good-naturedly and ironically:

"She asks what a man needs a ship for.  You must be a fine set of
people.  You don't know what a man needs a ship for!  And you speak
seriously?  If I had a ship I would have rushed toward the sun.  And
it would not matter how it sets its golden sails, I would overtake it
with my black sails.  And I would force it to outline my shadow on
the deck of my ship.  And I would put my foot upon it this way!"

He stamps his foot firmly.  Then Mariet asks, cautiously:

"Did you say with black sails?"

"That's what I said.  Why do you always ask questions?  I have no
ship, you know.  Good-bye."

He puts on his hat, but does not move.  Mariet maintains silence.
Then he says, very angrily:

"Perhaps you, too, like the music of your old Dan, that old fool?"

"You know his name?"

"Khorre told me it.  I don't like his music, no, no.  Bring me a
good, honest dog, or beast, and he will howl.  You will say that he
knows no music--he does, but he can't bear falsehood.  Here is music.
Listen!"

He takes Mariet by the hand and turns her roughly, her face toward
the ocean.

"Do you hear?  This is music.  Your Dan has robbed the sea and the
wind.  No, he is worse than a thief, he is a deceiver!  He should be
hanged on a sailyard--your Dan!  Good-bye!"

He goes, but after taking two steps he turns around.

"I said good-bye to you.  Go home.  Let this fool play alone.  Well, go."

Mariet is silent, motionless.  Haggart laughs:

"Are you afraid perhaps that I have forgotten your name?  I remember
it.  Your name is Mariet.  Go, Mariet."

She says softly:

"I have seen your ship."

Haggart advances to her quickly and bends down.  His face is terrible.

"It is not true.  When?"

"Last evening."

"It is not true!  Which way was it going?"

"Toward the sun."

"Last evening I was drunk and I slept.  But this is not true.  I
have never seen it.  You are testing me.  Beware!"

"Shall I tell you if I see it again?"

"How can you tell me?"

"I shall come up your hill."

Haggart looks at her attentively.

"If you are only telling me the truth.  What sort of people are there
in your land--false or not?  In the lands I know, all the people are
false.  Has any one else seen that ship?"

"I don't know.  I was alone on the shore.  Now I see that it was not
your ship.  You are not glad to hear of it."

Haggart is silent, as though he has forgotten her presence.

"You have a pretty uniform.  You are silent?  I shall come up to you."

Haggart is silent.  His dark profile is stern and wildly gloomy;
every motion of his powerful body, every fold of his clothes, is full
of the dull silence of the taciturnity of long hours, or days, or
perhaps of a lifetime.

"Your sailor will not kill me?  You are silent.  I have a betrothed.
His name is Philipp, but I don't love him.  You are now like that
rock which lies on the road leading to the castle."

Haggart turns around silently and starts.

"I also remember your name.  Your name is Haggart."

He goes away.

"Haggart!" calls Mariet, but he has already disappeared behind the
house.  Only the creaking of the scattered cobblestones is heard,
dying away in the misty air.  Dan, who has taken a rest, is playing
again; he is telling God about those who have perished at sea.

The night is growing darker.  Neither the rock nor the castle is
visible now; only the light in the window is redder and brighter.

The dull thuds of the tireless breakers are telling the story of
different lives.



CHAPTER II


A strong wind is tossing the fragment of a sail which is hanging
over the large, open window.  The sail is too small to cover the
entire window, and, through the gaping hole, the dark night is
breathing inclement weather.  There is no rain, but the warm wind,
saturated with the sea, is heavy and damp.

Here in the tower live Haggart and his sailor, Khorre.  Both are
sleeping now a heavy, drunken sleep.  On the table and in the corners
of the room there are empty bottles, and the remains of food; the
only taburet is overturned, lying on one side.  Toward evening the
sailor got up, lit a large illumination lamp, and was about to do
more, but he was overcome by intoxication again and fell asleep upon
his thin mattress of straw and seagrass.  Tossed by the wind, the
flame of the illumination-lamp is quivering in yellow, restless spots
over the uneven, mutilated walls, losing itself in the dark opening
of the door, which leads to the other rooms of the castle.

Haggart lies on his back, and the same quivering yellow shades run
noiselessly over his strong forehead, approach his closed eyes, his
straight, sharply outlined nose, and, tossing about in confusion,
rush back to the wall.  The breathing of the sleeping man is deep and
uneven; from time to time his heavy, strange hand lifts itself, makes
several weak, unfinished movements, and falls down on his breast
helplessly.

Outside the window the breakers are roaring and raging, beating
against the rocks--this is the second day a storm is raging in the
ocean.  The ancient tower is quivering from the violent blows of the
waves.  It responds to the storm with the rustling of the falling
plaster, with the rattling of the little cobblestones as they are
torn down, with the whisper and moans of the wind which has lost its
way in the passages.  It whispers and mutters like an old woman.

The sailor begins to feel cold on the stone floor, on which the wind
spreads itself like water; he tosses about, folds his legs under
himself, draws his head into his shoulders, gropes for his imaginary
clothes, but is unable to wake up--his intoxication produced by a two
days' spree is heavy and severe.  But now the wind whines more
powerfully than before; something heaves a deep groan.  Perhaps a
part of a destroyed wall has sunk into the sea.  The quivering yellow
spots commence to toss about upon the crooked wall more desperately,
and Khorre awakes.

He sits up on his mattress, looks around, but is unable to
understand anything.

The wind is hissing like a robber summoning other robbers, and filling
the night with disquieting phantoms.  It seems as if the sea were full
of sinking vessels, of people who are drowning and desperately struggling
with death.  Voices are heard.  Somewhere near by people are shouting,
scolding each other, laughing and singing, like madmen, or talking
sensibly and rapidly--it seems that soon one will see a strange human
face distorted by horror or laughter, or fingers bent convulsively.  But
there is a strong smell of the sea, and that, together with the cold,
brings Khorre to his senses.

"Noni!" he calls hoarsely, but Haggart does not hear him.  After a
moment's thought, he calls once more:

"Captain.  Noni!  Get up."

But Haggart does not answer and the sailor mutters:

"Noni is drunk and he sleeps.  Let him sleep.  Oh, what a cold night
it is.  There isn't enough warmth in it even to warm your nose.  I am
cold.  I feel cold and lonesome, Noni.  I can't drink like that,
although everybody knows I am a drunkard.  But it is one thing to
drink, and another to drown in gin--that's an entirely different
matter.  Noni--you are like a drowned man, simply like a corpse.  I
feel ashamed for your sake, Noni.  I shall drink now and--"

He rises, and staggering, finds an unopened bottle and drinks.

"A fine wind.  They call this a storm--do you hear, Noni?  They call
this a storm.  What will they call a real storm?"

He drinks again.

"A fine wind!"

He goes over to the window and, pushing aside the corner of the
sail, looks out.

"Not a single light on the sea, or in the village.  They have hidden
themselves and are sleeping--they are waiting for the storm to pass.
B-r-r, how cold!  I would have driven them all out to sea; it is mean
to go to sea only when the weather is calm.  That is cheating the
sea.  I am a pirate, that's true; my name is Khorre, and I should
have been hanged long ago on a yard, that's true, too--but I shall
never allow myself such meanness as to cheat the sea.  Why did you
bring me to this hole, Noni?"

He picks up some brushwood, and throws it into the fireplace.

"I love you, Noni.  I am now going to start a fire to warm your
feet.  I used to be your nurse, Noni; but you have lost your reason--
that's true.  I am a wise man, but I don't understand your conduct at
all.  Why did you drop your ship?  You will be hanged, Noni, you will
be hanged, and I will dangle by your side.  You have lost your
reason, that's true!"

He starts a fire, then prepares food and drink.

"What will you say when you wake up?  'Fire.'  And I will answer,
'Here it is.'  Then you will say, 'Something to drink.'  And I will
answer, 'Here it is.'  And then you will drink your fill again, and I
will drink with you, and you will prate nonsense.  How long is this
going to last?  We have lived this way two months now, or perhaps two
years, or twenty years--I am drowning in gin--I don't understand your
conduct at all, Noni."

He drinks.

"Either I have lost my mind from this gin, or a ship is being
wrecked near by.  How they are crying!"

He looks out of the window.

"No, no one is here.  It is the wind.  The wind feels weary, and it
plays all by itself.  It has seen many shipwrecks, and now it is
inventing.  The wind itself is crying; the wind itself is scolding
and sobbing; and the wind itself is laughing--the rogue!  But if you
think that this rag with which I have covered the window is a sail,
and that this ruin of a castle is a three-masted brig, you are a
fool!  We are not going anywhere!  We are standing securely at our
moorings, do you hear?"

He pushes the sleeping man cautiously.

"Get up, Noni.  I feel lonesome.  If we must drink, let's drink
together--I feel lonesome.  Noni!"

Haggart awakens, stretches himself and says, without opening his eyes:

"Fire."

"Here it is."

"Something to drink."

"Here it is!  A fine wind, Noni.  I looked out of the window, and the
sea splashed into my eyes.  It is high tide now and the water-dust flies
up to the tower.  I feel lonesome, Noni.  I want to speak to you.  Don't
be angry!"

"It's cold."

"Soon the fire will burn better.  I don't understand your actions.
Don't be angry, Noni, but I don't understand your actions!  I am
afraid that you have lost your mind."

"Did you drink again?"

"I did."

"Give me some."

He drinks from the mouth of the bottle lying on the floor, his eyes
wandering over the crooked mutilated walls, whose every projection
and crack is now lighted by the bright flame in the fireplace.  He is
not quite sure yet whether he is awake, or whether it is all a dream.
With each strong gust of wind the flame is hurled from the fireplace,
and then the entire tower seems to dance--the last shadows melt and
rush off into the open door.

"Don't drink it all at once, Noni!  Not all at once!" says the
sailor and gently takes the bottle away from him.  Haggart seats
himself and clasps his head with both hands.

"I have a headache.  What is that cry?  Was there a shipwreck?"

"No, Noni.  It is the wind playing roguishly."

"Khorre!"

"Captain."

"Give me the bottle."

He drinks a little more and sets the bottle on the table.  Then he
paces the room, straightening his shoulders and his chest, and looks
out of the window.  Khorre looks over his shoulder and whispers:

"Not a single light.  It is dark and deserted.  Those who had to die
have died already, and the cautious cowards are sitting on the solid
earth."

Haggart turns around and says, wiping his face:

"When I am intoxicated, I hear voices and singing.  Does that happen
to you, too, Khorre?  Who is that singing now?"

"The wind is singing, Noni--only the wind."

"No, but who else?  It seems to me a human being is singing, a woman
is singing, and others are laughing and shouting something.  Is that
all nothing but the wind?"

"Only the wind."

"Why does the wind deceive me?" says Haggart haughtily.

"It feels lonesome, Noni, just as I do, and it laughs at the human
beings.  Have you heard the wind lying like this and mocking in the
open sea?  There it tells the truth, but here--it frightens the
people on shore and mocks them.  The wind does not like cowards.  You
know it."

Haggart says morosely:

"I heard their organist playing not long ago in church.  He lies."

"They are all liars."

"No!" exclaims Haggart angrily.  "Not all.  There are some who tell
the truth there, too.  I shall cut your ears off if you will slander
honest people.  Do you hear?"

"Yes."

They are silent; they listen to the wild music of the sea.  The wind
has evidently grown mad.  Having taken into its embrace a multitude
of instruments with which human beings produce their music--harps,
reed-pipes, priceless violins, heavy drums and brass trumpets--it
breaks them all, together with a wave, against the sharp rocks.  It
dashes them and bursts into laughter--only thus does the wind
understand music--each time in the death of an instrument, each time
in the breaking of strings, in the snapping of the clanging brass.
Thus does the mad musician understand music.  Haggart heaves a deep
sigh and with some amazement, like a man just awakened from sleep,
looks around on all sides.  Then he commands shortly:

"Give me my pipe."

"Here it is."

Both commence to smoke.

"Don't be angry, Noni," says the sailor.  "You have become so angry
that one can't come near you at all.  May I chat with you?"

"There are some who do tell the truth there, too," says Haggart
sternly, emitting rings of smoke.

"How shall I say it you, Noni?" answers the sailor cautiously but
stubbornly.  "There are no truthful people there.  It has been so
ever since the deluge.  At that time all the honest people went out
to sea, and only the cowards and liars remained upon the solid earth."

Haggart is silent for a minute; then he takes the pipe from his
mouth and laughs gaily.

"Have you invented it yourself?"

"I think so," says Khorre modestly.

"Clever!  And it was worth teaching you sacred history for that!
Were you taught by a priest?"

"Yes.  In prison.  At that time I was as innocent as a dove.  That's
also from sacred scriptures, Noni.  That's what they always say there."

"He was a fool!  It was not necessary to teach you, but to hang
you," says Haggart, adding morosely:  "Don't talk nonsense, sailor.
Hand me a bottle."

They drink.  Khorre stamps his foot against the stone floor and asks:

"Do you like this motionless floor?"

"I should have liked to have the deck of a ship dancing under my
feet."

"Noni!" exclaims the sailor enthusiastically.  "Noni!  Now I hear
real words!  Let us go away from here.  I cannot live like this.  I
am drowning in gin.  I don't understand your actions at all, Noni!
You have lost your mind.  Reveal yourself to me, my boy.  I was your
nurse.  I nursed you, Noni, when your father brought you on board
ship.  I remember how the city was burning then and we were putting
out to sea, and I didn't know what to do with you; you whined like a
little pig in the cook's room.  I even wanted to throw you overboard--
you annoyed me so much.  Ah, Noni, it is all so touching that I can't
bear to recall it.  I must have a drink.  Take a drink, too, my boy,
but not all at once, not all at once!"

They drink.  Haggart paces the room heavily and slowly, like a man
who is imprisoned in a dungeon but does not want to escape.

"I feel sad," he says, without looking at Khorre.  Khorre, as though
understanding, shakes his head in assent.

"Sad?  I understand.  Since then?"

"Ever since then."

"Ever since we drowned those people?  They cried so loudly."

"I did not hear their cry.  But this I heard--something snapped in
my heart, Khorre.  Always sadness, everywhere sadness!  Let me drink!"

He drinks.

"He who cried--am I perhaps afraid of him, Khorre?  That would be
fine!  Tears were trickling from his eyes; he wept like one who is
unfortunate.  Why did he do that?  Perhaps he came from a land where
the people had never heard of death--what do you think, sailor?"

"I don't remember him, Noni.  You speak so much about him, while I
don't remember him."

"He was a fool," says Haggart.  "He spoilt his death for himself,
and spoilt me my life.  I curse him, Khorre.  May he be cursed.  But
that doesn't matter, Khorre--no!"

Silence.

"They have good gin on this coast," says Khorre.  "He'll pass
easily, Noni.  If you have cursed him there will be no delay; he'll
slip into hell like an oyster."

Haggart shakes his head:

"No, Khorre, no!  I am sad.  Ah, sailor, why have I stopped here,
where I hear the sea?  I should go away, far away on land, where the
people don't know the sea at all, where the people have never heard
about the sea--a thousand miles away, five thousand miles away!"

"There is no such land."

"There is, Khorre.  Let us drink and laugh, Khorre.  That organist
lies.  Sing something for me, Khorre--you sing well.  In your hoarse
voice I hear the creaking of ropes.  Your refrain is like a sail that
is torn by the storm.  Sing, sailor!"

Khorre nods his head gloomily.

"No, I will not sing."

"Then I shall force you to pray as they prayed!"

"You will not force me to pray, either.  You are the Captain, and
you may kill me, and here is your revolver.  It is loaded, Noni.  And
now I am going to speak the truth, Captain!  Khorre, the boatswain,
speaks to you in the name of the entire crew."

Haggart says:

"Drop this performance, Khorre.  There is no crew here.  You'd
better drink something."

He drinks.

"But the crew is waiting for you, you know it.  Captain, is it your
intention to return to the ship and assume command again?"

"No."

"Captain, is it perhaps your intention to go to the people on the
coast and live with them?"

"No."

"I can't understand your actions, Noni.  What do you intend to do,
Captain?"

Haggart drinks silently.

"Not all at once, Noni, not at once.  Captain, do you intend to stay
in this hole and wait until the police dogs come from the city?  Then
they will hang us, and not upon a mast, but simply on one of their
foolish trees."

"Yes.  The wind is getting stronger.  Do you hear, Khorre?  The wind
is getting stronger!"

"And the gold which we have buried here?"  He points below, with his
finger.

"The gold?  Take it and go with it wherever you like."

The sailor says angrily:

"You are a bad man, Noni.  You have only set foot on earth a little
while ago, and you already have the thoughts of a traitor.  That's
what the earth is doing!"

"Be silent, Khorre.  I am listening.  Our sailors are singing.  Do
you hear?  No, that's the wine rushing to my head.  I'll be drunk
soon.  Give me another bottle."

"Perhaps you will go to the priest?  He would absolve your sins."

"Silence!" roars Haggart, clutching at his revolver.

Silence.  The storm is increasing.  Haggart paces the room in
agitation, striking against the walls.  He mutters something
abruptly.  Suddenly he seizes the sail and tears it down furiously,
admitting the salty wind.  The illumination lamp is extinguished and
the flame in the fireplace tosses about wildly--like Haggart.

"Why did you lock out the wind?  It's better now.  Come here."

"You were the terror of the seas!" says the sailor.

"Yes, I was the terror of the seas."

"You were the terror of the coasts!  Your famous name resounded like
the surf over all the coasts, wherever people live.  They saw you in
their dreams.  When they thought of the ocean, they thought of you.
When they heard the storm, they heard you, Noni!"

"I burnt their cities.  The deck of my ship is shaking under my
feet, Khorre.  The deck is shaking under me!"

He laughs wildly, as if losing his senses.

"You sank their ships.  You sent to the bottom the Englishman who
was chasing you."

"He had ten guns more than I."

"And you burnt and drowned him.  Do you remember, Noni, how the wind
laughed then?  The night was as black as this night, but you made day
of it, Noni.  We were rocked by a sea of fire."

Haggart stands pale-faced, his eyes closed.  Suddenly he shouts
commandingly:

"Boatswain!"

"Yes," Khorre jumps up.

"Whistle for everybody to go up on deck."

"Yes."

The boatswain's shrill whistle pierces sharply into the open body of
the storm.  Everything comes to life, and it looks as though they
were upon the deck of a ship.  The waves are crying with human
voices.  In semi-oblivion, Haggart is commanding passionately and
angrily:

"To the shrouds!--The studding sails!  Be ready, forepart!  Aim at
the ropes; I don't want to sink them all at once.  Starboard the
helm, sail by the wind.  Be ready now.  Ah, fire!  Ah, you are
already burning!  Board it now!  Get the hooks ready."

And Khorre tosses about violently, performing the mad instructions.

"Yes, yes."

"Be braver, boys.  Don't be afraid of tears!  Eh, who is crying
there?  Don't dare cry when you are dying.  I'll dry your mean eyes
upon the fire.  Fire!  Fire everywhere!  Khorre--sailor!  I am dying.
They have poured molten tar into my chest.  Oh, how it burns!"

"Don't give way, Noni.  Don't give way.  Recall your father.  Strike
them on the head, Noni!"

"I can't, Khorre.  My strength is failing.  Where is my power?"

"Strike them on the head, Noni.  Strike them on the head!"

"Take a knife, Khorre, and cut out my heart.  There is no ship,
Khorre--there is nothing.  Cut out my heart, comrade--throw out the
traitor from my breast."

"I want to play some more, Noni.  Strike them on the head!"

"There is no ship, Khorre, there is nothing--it is all a lie.  I
want to drink."

He takes a bottle and laughs:

"Look, sailor--here the wind and the storm and you and I are locked.
It is all a deception, Khorre!"

"I want to play."

"Here my sorrow is locked.  Look!  In the green glass it seems like
water, but it isn't water.  Let us drink, Khorre--there on the bottom
I see my laughter and your song.  There is no ship--there is nothing!
Who is coming?"

He seizes his revolver.  The fire in the fire-place is burning
faintly; the shadows are tossing about--but two of these shadows are
darker than the others and they are walking.  Khorre shouts:

"Halt!"

A man's voice, heavy and deep, answers:

"Hush!  Put down your weapons.  I am the abbot of this place."

"Fire, Noni, fire!  They have come for you."

"I have come to help you.  Put down your knife, fool, or I will
break every bone in your body without a knife.  Coward, are you
frightened by a woman and a priest?"

Haggart puts down his revolver and says ironically:

"A woman and a priest!  Is there anything still more terrible?
Pardon my sailor, Mr. abbot, he is drunk, and when he is drunk he is
very reckless and he may kill you.  Khorre, don't turn your knife."

"He has come after you, Noni."

"I have come to warn you; the tower may fall.  Go away from here!"
says the abbot.

"Why are you hiding yourself, girl?  I remember your name; your name
is Mariet," says Haggart.

"I am not hiding.  I also remember your name--it is Haggart,"
replies Mariet.

"Was it you who brought him here?"

"I."

"I have told you that they are all traitors, Noni," says Khorre.

"Silence!"

"It is very cold here.  I will throw some wood into the fireplace.
May I do it?" asks Mariet.

"Do it," answers Haggart.

"The tower will fall down before long," says the abbot.  "Part of the
wall has caved in already; it is all hollow underneath.  Do you hear?"

He stamps his foot on the stone floor.

"Where will the tower fall?"

"Into the sea, I suppose!  The castle is splitting the rocks."

Haggart laughs:

"Do you hear, Khorre?  This place is not as motionless as it seemed
to you--while it cannot move, it can fall.  How many people have you
brought along with you, priest, and where have you hidden them?"

"Only two of us came, my father and I," says Mariet.

"You are rude to a priest.  I don't like that," says the abbot.

"You have come here uninvited.  I don't like that either," says Haggart.

"Why did you lead me here, Mariet?  Come," says the abbot.

Haggart speaks ironically:

"And you leave us here to die?  That is unChristian, Christian."

"Although I am a priest, I am a poor Christian, and the Lord knows
it," says the abbot angrily.  "I have no desire to save such a rude
scamp.  Let us go, Mariet."

"Captain?" asks Khorre.

"Be silent, Khorre," says Haggart.  "So that's the way you speak,
abbot; so you are not a liar?"

"Come with me and you shall see."

"Where shall I go with you?"

"To my house."

"To your house?  Do you hear, Khorre?  To the priest!  But do you
know whom you are calling to your house?"

"No, I don't know.  But I see that you are young and strong.  I see
that although your face is gloomy, it is handsome, and I think that
you could be as good a workman as others."

"A workman?  Khorre, do you hear what the priest says?"

Both laugh.  The abbot says angrily:

"You are both drunk."

"Yes, a little!  But if I were sober I would have laughed still
more," answers Haggart.

"Don't laugh, Haggart," says Mariet.

Haggart replies angrily:

"I don't like the tongues of false priests, Mariet--they are coated
with truth on top, like a lure for flies.  Take him away, and you,
girl, go away, too!  I have forgotten your name!"

He sits down and stares ahead sternly.  His eyebrows move close
together, and his hand is pressed down heavily by his lowered head,
by his strong chin.

"He does not know you, father!  Tell him about yourself.  You speak
so well.  If you wish it, he will believe you, father.  Haggart!"

Haggart maintains silence.

"Noni!  Captain!"

Silence.  Khorre whispers mysteriously:

"He feels sad.  Girl, tell the priest that he feels sad."

"Khorre," begins Mariet.  Haggart looks around quickly.

"What about Khorre?  Why don't you like him, Mariet?  We are so much
like each other."

"He is like you?" says the woman with contempt.  "No, Haggart!  But
here is what he did:  He gave gin to little Noni again to-day.  He
moistened his finger and gave it to him.  He will kill him, father."

Haggart laughs:

"Is that so bad?  He did the same to me."

"And he dipped him in cold water.  The boy is very weak," says
Mariet morosely.

"I don't like to hear you speak of weakness.  Our boy must be
strong.  Khorre!  Three days without gin."

He shows him three fingers.

"Who should be without gin?  The boy or I?" asks Khorre gloomily.

"You!" replies Haggart furiously.  "Begone!"

The sailor sullenly gathers his belongings--the pouch, the pipe, and
the flask--and wabbling, goes off.  But he does not go far--he sits
down upon a neighbouring rock.  Haggart and his wife look at him.



CHAPTER III


The work is ended.  Having lost its gloss, the last neglected fish
lies on the ground; even the children are too lazy to pick it up; and
an indifferent, satiated foot treads it into the mud.  A quiet,
fatigued conversation goes on, mingled with gay and peaceful laughter.

"What kind of a prayer is our abbot going to say to-day?  It is
already time for him to come."

"And do you think it is so easy to compose a good prayer?  He is
thinking."

"Selly's basket broke and the fish were falling out.  We laughed so
much!  It seems so funny to me even now!"

Laughter.  Two fishermen look at the sail in the distance.

"All my life I have seen large ships sailing past us.  Where are
they going?  They disappear beyond the horizon, and I go off to
sleep; and I sleep, while they are forever going, going.  Where are
they going?  Do you know?"

"To America."

"I should like to go with them.  When they speak of America my heart
begins to ring.  Did you say America on purpose, or is that the truth?"

Several old women are whispering:

"Wild Gart is angry again at his sailor.  Have you noticed it?"

"The sailor is displeased.  Look, how wan his face is."

"Yes, he looks like the evil one when he is compelled to listen to a
psalm.  But I don't like Wild Gart, either.  No.  Where did he come
from?"

They resume their whispers.  Haggart complains softly:

"Why have you the same name, Mariet, for everybody?  It should not
be so in a truthful land."

Mariet speaks with restrained force, pressing both hands to her
breast:

"I love you so dearly, Gart; when you go out to sea, I set my teeth
together and do not open them until you come back.  When you are
away, I eat nothing and drink nothing; when you are away, I am
silent, and the women laugh:  'Mute Mariet!'  But I would be insane
if I spoke when I am alone."

HAGGART--Here you are again compelling me to smile.  You must not,
Mariet--I am forever smiling.

MARIET--I love you so dearly, Gart.  Every hour of the day and the
night I am thinking only of what I could still give to you, Gart.
Have I not given you everything?  But that is so little--everything!
There is but one thing I want to do--to keep on giving to you,
giving!  When the sun sets, I present you the sunset; when the sun
rises, I present you the sunrise--take it, Gart!  And are not all the
storms yours?  Ah, Haggart, how I love you!

HAGGART--I am going to toss little Noni so high to-day that I will
toss him up to the clouds.  Do you want me to do it?  Let us laugh,
dear little sister Mariet.  You are exactly like myself.  When you
stand that way, it seems to me that I am standing there--I have to
rub my eyes.  Let us laugh!  Some day I may suddenly mix things up
--I may wake up and say to you:  "Good morning, Haggart!"

MARIET--Good morning, Mariet.

HAGGART--I will call you Haggart.  Isn't that a good idea?

MARIET--And I will call you Mariet.

HAGGART--Yes--no.  You had better call me Haggart, too.

"You don't want me to call you Mariet?" asks Mariet sadly.

The abbot and old Dan appear.  The abbot says in a loud, deep voice:

"Here I am.  Here I am bringing you a prayer, children.  I have just
composed it; it has even made me feel hot.  Dan, why doesn't the boy
ring the bell?  Oh, yes, he is ringing.  The fool--he isn't swinging
the right rope, but that doesn't matter; that's good enough, too.
Isn't it, Mariet?"

Two thin but merry bells are ringing.

Mariet is silent and Haggart answers for her:

"That's good enough.  But what are the bells saying, abbot?"

The fishermen who have gathered about them are already prepared to
laugh--the same undying jest is always repeated.

"Will you tell no one about it?" says the abbot, in a deep voice,
slily winking his eye.  "Pope's a rogue!  Pope's a rogue!"

The fishermen laugh merrily.

"This man," roars the abbot, pointing at Haggart, "is my favourite
man!  He has given me a grandson, and I wrote the Pope about it in
Latin.  But that wasn't so hard; isn't that true, Mariet?  But he
knows how to look at the water.  He foretells a storm as if he
himself caused it.  Gart, do you produce the storm yourself?  Where
does the wind come from?  You are the wind yourself."

All laugh approval.  An old fisherman says:

"That's true, father.  Ever since he has been here, we have never
been caught in a storm."

"Of course it is true, if I say it.  'Pope's a rogue!  Pope's a
rogue!'"

Old Dan walks over to Khorre and says something to him.  Khorre nods
his head negatively.  The abbot, singing "Pope's a rogue," goes
around the crowd, throws out brief remarks, and claps some people on
the shoulder in a friendly manner.

"Hello, Katerina, you are getting stout.  Oho!  Are you all ready?
And Thomas is missing again--this is the second time he has stayed
away from prayer.  Anna, you are rather sad--that isn't good.  One
must live merrily, one must live merrily!  I think that it is jolly
even in hell, but in a different way.  It is two years since you have
stopped growing, Philipp.  That isn't good."

Philipp answers gruffly:

"Grass also stops growing if a stone falls upon it."

"What is still worse than that--worms begin to breed under the rock."

Mariet says softly, sadly and entreatingly:

"Don't you want me to call you Mariet?"

Haggart answers obstinately and sternly:

"I don't.  If my name will be Mariet, I shall never kill that man.
He disturbs my life.  Make me a present of his life, Mariet.  He
kissed you."

"How can I present you that which is not mine?  His life belongs to
God and to himself."

"That is not true.  He kissed you; do I not see the burns upon your
lips?  Let me kill him, and you will feel as joyful and care-free as
a seagull.  Say 'yes,' Mariet."

"No; you shouldn't do it, Gart.  It will be painful to you."

Haggart looks at her and speaks with deep irony.

"Is that it?  Well, then, it is not true that you give me anything.
You don't know how to give, woman."

"I am your wife."

"No!  A man has no wife when another man, and not his wife, grinds
his knife.  My knife is dull, Mariet!"

Mariet looks at him with horror and sorrow.

"What did you say, Haggart?  Wake up; it is a terrible dream,
Haggart!  It is I--look at me.  Open your eyes wider, wider, until
you see me well.  Do you see me, Gart?"

Haggart slowly rubs his brow.

"I don't know.  It is true I love you, Mariet.  But how incomprehensible
your land is--in your land a man sees dreams even when he is not asleep.
Perhaps I am smiling already.  Look, Mariet."

The abbot stops in front of Khorre.

"Ah, old friend, how do you do?  You are smiling already.  Look, Mariet."

"I don't want to work," ejaculates the sailor sternly.

"You want your own way?  This man," roars the abbot, pointing at
Khorre, "thinks that he is an atheist.  But he is simply a fool; he
does not understand that he is also praying to God--but he is doing
it the wrong way, like a crab.  Even a fish prays to God, my children;
I have seen it myself.  When you will be in hell, old man,give my
regards to the Pope.  Well, children, come closer, and don't gnash
your teeth.  I am going to start at once.  Eh, you, Mathias--you
needn't put out the fire in your pipe; isn't it the same to God what
smoke it is, incense or tobacco, if it is only well meant.  Why do
you shake your head, woman?"

WOMAN--His tobacco is contraband.

YOUNG FISHERMAN--God wouldn't bother with such trifles.  The abbot
thinks a while:

"No; hold on.  I think contraband tobacco is not quite so good.
That's an inferior grade.  Look here; you better drop your pipe
meanwhile, Mathias; I'll think the matter over later.  Now, silence,
perfect silence.  Let God take a look at us first."

All stand silent and serious.  Only a few have lowered their heads.
Most of the people are looking ahead with wide-open, motionless eyes,
as though they really saw God in the blue of the sky, in the
boundless, radiant, distant surface of the sea.  The sea is
approaching with a caressing murmur; high tide has set in.

"My God and the God of all these people!  Don't judge us for
praying, not in Latin but in our own language, which our mothers have
taught us.  Our God!  Save us from all kinds of terrors, from unknown
sea monsters; protect us against storms and hurricanes, against
tempests and gales.  Give us calm weather and a kind wind, a clear
sun and peaceful waves.  And another thing, O Lord! we ask You; don't
allow the devil, to come close to our bedside when we are asleep.  In
our sleep we are defenceless, O Lord! and the devil terrifies us,
tortures us to co