The Path of Life Part 17

"Then he must have a bran bath, Zalia. Stanse, put on the kettle."

"Have you any bran, Zalia?"

"No, not ready; but there's maize."

"And a sieve?"

"Yes, there's a sieve."

"Hi, Warten, come and sift!"

Warten came in:

"Zeen, how are you, my boy? Oh, how thin he is! And his breath ... it's spluttering, that's bad. He'll go off quickly, Barbara, it seems to me."

"Not to-night," said Treze.

"Warten, go to the loft, take the lamp and sift out a handful of maize; Zeen must have a bran bath at once."

Warten went up the stair. After a while, they heard above their heads the regular, jogging drag of the sieve over the boarded ceiling and the fine meal-dust snowed down through the cracks, whirling round the lamp, and fell on Zeen's bed and on the women standing round.

Zeen nodded his head. They held a bowl of milk to his mouth; two little white streaks ran down from the corners of his mouth into his shirt-collar.

The sieve went on dragging. The women looked at Zeen, then at one another and then at the lantern. In the kitchen, the kettle sang drearily....

Warten came down from the loft with half a pailful of bran. Barbara poured the steaming water on it and flung in a handful of salt.

They took the clothes off the bed and pulled his feet into the bran-water. Zeen groaned; he opened his eyes wide and looked round wildly at all those people.

He hung there for a very long time, with his lean black legs out of the bed and the bony knees and shrunk thighs in the insipid, sickly-smelling steam of the bran-water. Then they lifted him out and stuck his wet feet under the bedclothes again. Zeen did not stir, but just lay with the rattle in his throat.

"What a sad sick man," said Stanse, softly.

Mite wanted to give him some food, eggs: it might be faintness.

Treze wanted to bring him round with gin: her husband had once....

"Is there any, for the night?..." asked Stanse.

"There's a whole bottle over there, in the cupboard."

Zeen opened his eyes--two green, glazed eyes, which no longer saw things--and wriggled his arms from under the clothes:

"Why don't you make the goat stop bleating?" he stammered.

They looked at one another.

"Zalia, why won't you speak to me?... And what are all these people doing here?... I don't want any one to help me die!... I and Zalia.... I and Zalia.... Look, how beautiful! Zalia, the procession's going up the wall there.... Why don't you look?... It's so beautiful!... And I, I'm the only ugly one in it...."

"He's wandering," whispered Treze.

"And what's that chap doing here, Zalia?"

"It's I, Zeen, I: Warten the spectacle-man."

His eyes fell to again and his cheeks again blew the breath through the little slit of his mouth. It rattled; and the fever rose.

"It'll be to-night," said Treze.

"Where can Virginie be? She'll come too late."

"Virginie is better than three doctors or a priest either," thought Mite.

"Zalia, I think I'd get out the candle."

Zalia went to the chest and got out the candle.

"Mother, I'm frightened," whined Fietje.

"You mustn't be frightened of dead people, child; you must get used to it."

"Have you any holy water, Zalia?"

"Oh, yes, Barbara: it's in the little pot over the bed!"

"And blessed palm?"

"Behind the crucifix."

There was a creaking in the kitchen and Virginie appeared past the loom: a little old woman huddled in her hooded cloak; in one hand she carried a little lantern and in the other a big prayer-book. She came quietly up to the bed, looked at Zeen for some time, felt his pulse and then, looking up, said, very quietly:

"Zeen's going.... Has the priest been?"

"The priest?... It's so far and so late and the poor soul's so old...."

"What have you given him?"

"Haarlem oil, English salt...."

"And we put his feet in bran water."

Virginie stood thinking.

"Have you any linseed-meal?" she asked.

"No."

"Then ... but it's too late now, any way...."