The Crushed Flower and Other Stories Part 16

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

"I don't want to work," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es 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 G.o.d--but he is doing it the wrong way, like a crab. Even a fish prays to G.o.d, my children; I have seen it myself. When you will be in h.e.l.l, 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 G.o.d 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--G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d and the G.o.d 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 G.o.d! 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 convulsions, torments us to the very blood of our heart. And there is another thing, O Lord! Old Rikke, whom You know, is beginning to extinguish Your light in his eyes and he can make nets no longer--"

Rikke frequently shakes his head in a.s.sent.

"I can't, I can't!"

"Prolong, then, O Lord! Your bright day and bid the night wait. Am I right, Rikke?"

"Yes."

"And here is still another, the last request, O Lord. I shall not ask any more: The tears do not dry up in the eyes of our old women crying for those who have perished. Take their memory away, O Lord, and give them strong forgetfulness. There are still other trifles, O Lord, but let the others pray whose turn has come before You. Amen."

Silence. Old Dan tugs the abbot by the sleeve, and whispers something in his ear.

ABBOT--Dan is asking me to pray for those who perished at sea.

The women exclaim in plaintive chorus:

"For those who perished at sea! For those who died at sea!"

Some of them kneel. The abbot looks tenderly at their bowed heads, exhausted with waiting and fear, and says:

"No priest should pray for those who died at sea--these women should pray. Make it so, O Lord, that they should not weep so much!"

Silence. The incoming tide roars more loudly--the ocean is carrying to the earth its noise, its secrets, its bitter, briny taste of unexplored depths.

Soft voices say:

"The sea is coming."

"High tide has started."

"The sea is coming."

Mariet kisses her father's hand.

"Woman!" says the priest tenderly. "Listen, Gart, isn't it strange that this--a woman"--he strokes his daughter tenderly with his finger on her pure forehead--"should be born of me, a man?"

Haggart smiles.

"And is it not strange that this should have become a wife to me, a man?" He embraces Mariet, bending her frail shoulders.

"Let us go to eat, Gart, my son. Whoever she may be, I know one thing well. She has prepared for you and me an excellent dinner."

The people disperse quickly. Mariet says confusedly and cheerfully:

"I'll run first."

"Run, run," answers the abbot. "Gart, my son, call the atheist to dinner. I'll hit him with a spoon on the forehead; an atheist understands a sermon best of all if you hit him with a spoon."

He waits and mutters:

"The boy has commenced to ring the bells again. He does it for himself, the rogue. If we did not lock the steeple, they would pray there from morning until night."

Haggart goes over to Khorre, near whom Dan is sitting.

"Khorre! Let us go to eat--the priest called you."

"I don't want to go, Noni."

"So? What are you going to do here on sh.o.r.e?"

"I will think, Noni, think. I have so much to think to be able to understand at least something."

Haggart turns around silently. The abbot calls from the distance:

"He is not coming? Well, then, let him stay there. And Dan--never call Dan, my son"--says the priest in his deep whisper, "he eats at night like a rat. Mariet purposely puts something away for him in the closet for the night; when she looks for it in the morning, it is gone. Just think of it, no one ever hears when he takes it. Does he fly?"

Both go off. Only the two old men, seated in a friendly manner on two neighbouring rocks, remain on the deserted sh.o.r.e. And the old men resemble each other so closely, and whatever they may say to each other, the whiteness of their hair, the deep lines of their wrinkles, make them kin.

The tide is coming.

"They have all gone away," mutters Khorre. "Thus will they cook hot soup on the wrecks of our ship, too. Eh, Dan! Do you know he ordered me to drink no gin for three days. Let the old dog croak! Isn't that so, Noni?"

"Of those who died at sea... Those who died at sea," mutters Dan. "A son taken from his father, a son from his father. The father said go, and the son perished in the sea. Oi, oi, oi!"

"What are you prating there, old man? I say, he ordered me to drink no gin. Soon he will order, like that King of yours, that the sea be lashed with chains."

"Oho! With chains."

"Your king was a fool. Was he married, your king?"