The Path of Life Part 19

Zalia made the sign of the Cross and closed her husband's eyes; then she laid a white towel on a little table by the bed and put the candle on it and the crucifix and the holy water.

Warten and Barbara took Zeen out of the bed and put him on a chair, washed him all over with luke-warm water, put a clean shirt on him and his Sunday clothes over him; then they laid him on the bed again.

"He'll soon begin to must," said Barbara.

"The weather's warm."

"He's very bent: how'll they get him into the coffin?"

"Crack his back."

Treze looked round for a prayer-book to lay under Zeen's chin and a crucifix and rosary for his hands.

Mite took a red handkerchief and bound it round his head to keep his mouth closed. Fietje was still kneeling and saying Our Fathers.

"It's done now," said Barbara, with a deep sigh. "We'll have just one more gla.s.s and then go to bed."

"Oh, dear people, stay a little longer!" whined Zalia. "Don't leave me here alone."

"It's only," said Mite, "that it'll be light early to-morrow and we've had no sleep yet."

"Come, come," said Barbara, to comfort her, "you mustn't take on now.

Zeen has lived his span and has died happily in his bed."

"Question is, shall we do as well?" said Mite.

"And Siska and Romenie and Kordula and the boys, who are not here! They ought to have seen their father die!... The poor children, they'll cry so!"

"They'll know it in good time," said Warten.

"And where are they living now?" asked Mite.

"In France, the two oldest ... and there's Miel, the soldier ... it's in their letters, behind the gla.s.s."

"Give 'em to me," said Treze. "I'll make my boy write to-morrow, before he goes to school."

They were going off.

"And I, who, with this all, don't know where I'm to sleep," said Warten.

"My old roost, over the goat-house: you'll be wanting that to-night, Zalia?"

Zalia wavered.

"Zalia could come with me," said Barbara.

"And leave the house alone? And who's to go to the priest to-morrow? And to the carpenter? And my harvest, my harvest! Yes, yes, Warten, do you get into the goat-house and help me a bit to-morrow. I shall sleep: why not?"

"_Alla_[12], come, Fietje; mother's going home."

[12] A corruption of the French _allez!_

They went; and Zalia came a bit of the way with them. Their wooden shoes clattered softly in the powdery sand of the white road; when they had gone very far, their voices still rang loud and their figures looked like wandering pollards.

In the east, a thin golden-red streak hung between two dark clouds. It was very cool.

"Fine weather to-morrow," said Warten; and he trudged off to his goat-house. "Good-night, Zalia."

"Good-night, Warten."

"Sleep well."

"Sleep well too and say another Our Father for Zeen."

"Certainly."

She went in and bolted the door. Inside it all smelt of candle and the musty odour of the corpse. She put out the fire in the hearth, dipped her fingers once more in the holy water and made a cross over Zeen. While her lips muttered the evening prayers, she took off her kerchief, her jacket and her cap and let fall her skirt. Then she straddled across Zeen and lay right against the wall. She twisted her feet in her shift and crept carefully under the bed-clothes. She shuddered. Her thoughts turned like the wind: her daughters were in service in France and were now sleeping quietly and knew of nothing; her eldest, who was married, and her husband and the children came only once a year to see their father; and even then.... And now they would find him dead.

Her harvest ... and she was alone now, to get it in. Warten would go to the priest early in the morning and to the carpenter: the priest ought to have been here, 'twas a comfort after all; but Zeen had always been good and ... now to go dying all at once like this, without the sacraments....

Why couldn't she sleep now? She was so tired, so worn out with that reaping; and it was so warm here, so stifling and it smelt queer: what a being could come to, when he was dead!

Had she slept at all? She had been lying there so long ... and there was that smell! She wished she had sent Warten away and gone herself to lie in the goat-house; here, beside that corpse ... but, after all, it was Zeen....

The flame of the candle flickered and everything flickered with it--the loom, the black rafters and the crucifix--in dark shadow-stripes upon the wall. 'Twas that kept her awake. She sat up and blew from where she was, but the flame danced more than ever and kept on burning. Then she carefully stepped across Zeen and nipped out the candle with her fingers.

It was dark now.... She strode back into bed, stepping on Zeen's leg; and the corpse shook and the stomach rumbled. She held herself tucked against the wall, twisted and turned, pinched her eyes to, but did not sleep. The smell got into her nose and throat and it became very irksome, unbearable. And she got out of bed again, to open the window. A fresh breeze blew into the room; far away beyond, the sky began to brighten; and behind the cornfield she heard the singing beat of a sickle and the whistling of a sad, drawling street-ditty:

"They're at work already."

Now she lay listening to the whizzing beat and the rustle of the falling corn and that drawling, never-changing tune....

The funeral would be the day after to-morrow: already she saw all the troop pa.s.sing along the road and then in the church and then ... all alone, home again. Zeen was dead now and she remained ... and all those children, her children, who still had so long to live, would also grow old, in their turn, and die ... ever on ... and all that misery and slaving and then to go ... and Zeen, her Zeen, the Zeen of yesterday, who was still alive then and not ill. Her Zeen; and she saw him as a young man over forty years ago: a handsome chap he was. She had lived so long with Zeen and had known him so well, better than her own self; and that he should now be lying there beside her ... cold ... and never again ...

that he should now be dead.

Then she broke down and wept.

THE END.