Day's End and Other Stories (2 page)

As he sat looking into the fire, clasping and unclasping his hands, sharp pangs of disappointment and regret went through him. Then he thought, but with another kind of pang, of his wife, her strict country face, her shrewd manner, whose philosophy had seemed to be ‘Never spend a half-penny when a farthing will do,' but who also, at the same time, had been discerning, kind-hearted, diligent and understanding.

Israel, for some reason or other, always thought of her on quarter-days. He thought of her distantly, simply, as if half-afraid of her. Now, at the receipt of this letter, he wished for her with a close, desperate longing that again was a pang.

He kept knitting his brows, blinking, and asking himself: ‘What would she have done about this?' All the time he felt weary. ‘Why should this have to come? Why should it?' he asked. And he would keep glancing at Henrietta, feeling that if she knew of the letter she would at once say: ‘It's God's will we should give up at last. Now we can go and live in the village and not slave any more.' And such a speedy decision, such a sudden break with the land he had farmed for forty years he did not wish for, and he felt he could not tell her of the letter.

His restlessness grew. He got up, and about the kitchen began to walk softly, in his stockinged feet. Henrietta said: ‘What's the matter? Why don't you sit still?' But he only grunted in reply that he could not sit still.

Suddenly he had a desire to leave her and be alone. And after being silent a moment or two he took a candle, lit it and holding it before him, went upstairs. The stairs were wooden and bare and creaked like new boots. It was dark, the candle-flame spluttered grease and gave a bad, flickering light. Dampness shone on the walls and every now and then wind came and shook the window-panes violently. At the end of the landing a door had become unlatched and was clanging violently.

The room Israel entered was cold and dismal, smelling faintly of something ripe, damp and rotting. When he set down the candle, shadows spread themselves like the tail-feathers of a huge bird over some rickety chairs, an old bureau, a litter of untidy papers and a few heaps of peas and beans strewn in the corner to dry. From the walls fell on him cold, unmoved stares from the portraits of his relations, his wife, of his wedding group and of himself dressed stiffly, without his beard, in middle age. Every one in these photographs, even himself, looked bored and stupid, and he did not look at them.

Sitting down he pondered for a long time over some papers. Outside the wind howled in the lattices, barns and trees, and far off, in the woods and
copses, seemed to whine like a dog. And all the time he thought: ‘If I don't buy the land what will happen, where shall we be?' And one moment he thought he would buy, then another that he would not. The cold sobbing of the wind made the thought of purchase appear warm and acceptable. Then with his daughter's repeated words: ‘Don't let's slave any more, let's leave it,' returning to him, he would remind himself of four bad harvests, a cow that had died and the visitation of swine-fever the previous year, and of the unending struggle they had to meet such things and yet still live.

The worst of these thoughts was that he must give up his land, go to live in the village and end his days as an odd labourer or even as a grave-digger or pensioner. He remembered the days when he had been strong, able to hoe, plough, and reap tirelessly, sit up all night with sick cattle and begin work again at daybreak. And he felt that as he had obeyed some force then, so he must offer no resistance to it now, but must work, scheme and exist as he had always done.

He turned over the papers with a sad, reflective expression. Now the shock of the letter did not produce restlessness of thought but only a soft, lingering ache, as if he remembered how some one had hurt him long ago. The effect of this was to make him more and more loath to face the problem of whether to buy his forty acres from the Duchy or not. He felt the need for strength, but every moment was conscious
of retreating a little farther away from the problem, as if succumbing to his own weakness. At last he found himself counting the days to the date of the sale, then to the other date, March 22nd. To the sale it needed twenty-six days, so that if he wished to buy he must decide in twenty-one. And suddenly the space of three whole weeks seemed to him so ample as to give him time to review every point of issue, even take outside advice and to do the thing that was most agreeable and advantageous.

The wind kept howling as he sat there. Gradually from a matter of complexity he found he had reduced everything to the simplest of terms. And this suited him, not because he was constantly and deliberately avoiding difficulties, but because he was by nature simple and trustful. And as he gathered his papers into a heap, took the candle and descended the damp, creaking stairs again, he would think over and over again:

‘To-morrow will do.'

And in the air he thought he still detected the sharpness of snow.

III

Israel, on rising next morning, did not think of the letter. In the night snow had fallen and the thought that he had foretold this filled him with an odd satisfaction. He felt this on first gazing out at the endless stretches of white fields, at the gates, sheep-troughs, hedges and woods half-buried in snow, and
the trees on which the snow hung like a blossom, delicate but heavy, waiting to fall.

Now everything, even the wretched barns, stacks, piles of wood and carts, looked dignified and beautiful. There was a strange stillness. The pond and the sky were of the same sombre grey. In the yard sparrows and starlings hopped noisily to and fro looking for something to eat. As Israel returned from milking all the birds flew into the orchard and sat in the trees chattering at him.

He stood watching them, grew cold and then went in for breakfast.

At breakfast he remarked:

‘The wind must have dropped with the snow. It must have done – everywhere's quiet and as it should be. Yes, there's not a thing out of place. I never woke at all.'

He remembered how soundly he had slept and began to eat. Silence fell. He kept sniffing and all the time drew in the smell of cooked bacon, warmth, sourness and felt happy. Then suddenly Henrietta said:

‘All the same, there's a tree down in the orchard.'

He started. ‘In the orchard? What sort, where?' he asked.

‘Not a fruit-tree – a big one, an elm,' she said.

‘I've been out, I never saw it!'

‘You stood watching it!'

‘I never saw it. They were birds I was watching.'

Feeling half-ashamed he suddenly rose, went to
the window and gazed out. Everywhere was still, the trees never stirred, only the birds still hopped to and fro, like black marionettes, in the snow. In parts the snow had taken the form of great jagged breakers. Elsewhere long graceful drifts stretched. In the orchard the fruit-trees, all lined with snow, were already letting fall soft transparent flakes. Beyond them Israel saw the tree which had fallen and lay like some white, prostrate bird with frozen wings.

And he said: ‘Yes, right enough, that's an elm.'

While saying this he felt his heart grow heavier. The loss of even a tree made him feel resentful, yet helpless, as if cheated of something.

He went back to the table, shook his head and said: ‘It's a pity,' in a slow, meditative voice.

Then suddenly he began to think of the letter and the tree together. It seemed to him that if the fall of a tree filled him with a sense of sadness and loss, such a sensation could only be multiplied endlessly if he were to give up his land. And immediately he longed desperately to pour into Henrietta's face appeals for her help and understanding. But he did not do so, did not even look at her. The room grew silent and as he sat there snow began to melt in soft, shining rivers of silver on the window. Beyond this in the sky soft-edged limpid pools of light were beginning to come.

Henrietta began clearing the table. But he did not move and felt only a desire to sit still, to watch the
snow and consider calmly how to act and to gather the courage to act.

But as she cleared away the cups and saucers, Henrietta said:

‘The roof of the hen-house has fallen in. It's the snow. You might get a pole and prop it up. Only mind, be careful what you're doing.'

‘I'll see to it,' he said.

But he spoke with faint weariness, with the habitual reluctance of a man accustomed to put off things from day to day.

IV

A thaw set in and within two days the meadows were blank sheets of water, the trees drenched and black and Israel's fields drab patches of green and brown again. When this happened Henrietta said to him:

‘Soon you ought to begin sawing the smaller arms of that tree. We could do with that.'

But she looked at him as if she meant: ‘We could do without it. Give it up – remember you're seventy.'

But he said nothing.

After a few delays, however, he went to a barn, found a saw and chopper and walked down to the orchard. Now only patches of snow remained, shining here and there like big mushrooms in the sheltered spots. Blue lakes of changing shape swam about the sky. The wind smelt of a soft dampness
and, though the sun was not shining, there was a pale tranquil light, and everything, the grass, the hedges, the trees, and especially as it seemed, the fallen tree, glistened faintly with moisture.

Israel stood still and looked at the tree. Among the branches a pigeon's nest was interwoven and he remembered that in summer leaves had concealed this but that the murmur of the pigeons had not been hushed at all.

He stood still for a long time. At last, when he took off his coat, he felt himself shiver. Sawing did not warm him either. And gradually the sawdust he made began to flutter down intermittently and feebly. The drone of the saw lessened as well. Then suddenly the sawdust, the saw itself and his whole body ceased moving.

For a minute he held himself arrested. His heart seemed as if gripped by a large, freezing hand. His forehead paled and gave out big drops of wet moisture. A haze floated before his eyes.

He tried to resist all these things with an odd sort of determination, biting his lips and shaking his head like a dog. And it seemed that after a moment or two the freezing at his heart retreated. The mist cleared and even far-off objects like copses, the floods in the meadows, the church and the clouds became normally clear, and only peculiar, alternate fits of shivering and warmth seized him.

For the past five or six years of his life Israel had suffered from something which could be called
neither a sickness nor a disease. And this was that, as now, the surrounding tissues of his heart would suddenly contract, sap his strength and leave him exhausted. On previous occasions Israel had drunk brandy for these fits and relief had come. Now he walked slowly to the house, waited till Henrietta was out of sight and moving furtively drank brandy again. As before the pain vanished, the cold hand was withdrawn completely from his heart. The only difference was that to do this needed a little more brandy than before.

Israel never connected one of these attacks with either advancing age, infirmity or strain. But during the attacks themselves he would, every time, find himself recalling Henrietta's words: ‘Give it up, don't slave any more.' But when they had passed the thought of giving up his land never returned to him.

This time, however, the letter, Henrietta's anxious insistence on the previous day and the loss of the tree brought on the trouble afresh. Some detail such as a bad deal or the death of a cow would make him think, ‘She is right, we get no profit, we've slaved long enough and it will have to come.' Yet though he thought this, he felt that whatever decision he made must unfold gradually, like summer or a flower. So his thoughts were dull, half-hearted and came to nothing.

And as he lay in bed that night, rain began to fall, desultorily at first, then with a steady splashing
sound. And while listening to it he thought of the fallen tree, Henrietta's soft face and her appeal to him, the attack at his heart that morning, and what he should do with all the sawdust lying under the tree. When he went to sleep he had intermittent dreams of the letter and repeated phrases of it, and the names of the solicitors who had sent it. But on waking up he did not consider it at all.

V

One Sunday morning, when only three days remained in which to act, he fed his pigs and then, telling Henrietta where he was going, walked down through the village to the river. Larks were singing in the pale, tranquil light of spring, and over everything, from one green edge of the horizon to another, a fresher loveliness seemed to have fallen.

In the village people were on their way to church, the bright hats of the women peeping out like flower-buds at unexpected places. As the street turned down to the river and the houses became older, more huddled and slanting, the bells for church began ringing. Sometimes gay, sometimes solemn, the sound followed him all the way to the river, on the banks of which the willows were masses of silvery blossom, and grew softer as he drew farther and farther away.

Then as he stood on the bridge it seemed to him the bells ceased altogether. Then in the silence he
fancied he heard them again, thinking how high and soft they were. But suddenly he became aware that the sound he heard was not of the bells but of a strange singing inside his head.

All the things at which he had gazed with such satisfaction and joy, the larks, the green meadows and the reflections in the water of the satin willows, the hawthorn bushes, the young reeds and the sky and the slow-gliding river itself, became suddenly unsteady and dim.

In a moment his breath became stifled, his brow clammy, and swaying forward in a tumbling stagger, it seemed to him that he was falling endlessly downwards, never stopping. For what seemed a long time with white features and strained lungs he hung over his own ghastly reflection in the water.

Struggling back up the long slope to the village, regaining his strength in frequent pauses and then losing it all in a second or two, he saw everything as in a sickly dream.