第98章 THE DEAD MAN(7)

And that heart which had ceased to beat in the dead man--had everything conceived in life by that heart found due expression in a world poverty, stricken of heart-conceived ideas? I knew that the man just passed away had been but a plain and insignificant mortal, yet as I reflected upon even the little that he had done, his labour loomed before me as greater than prowess of larger magnitude. Yes, to my mind there recurred the immature, battered ears of corn lying in the ruts of the steppe track, the swallows traversing the blue sky above the golden, brocaded grain, the kite hovering in the void over the landscape's vast periphery.. . . .

And along with these thoughts, there struck upon my ears a whistling of pinions as the shadow of a bird flitted across the brilliant, dew-bespangled green of the forecourt, and five cocks crowed in succession, and a flock of geese announced the fact of their awakening, and a cow lowed, and the gate of the cattle-pen creaked.

And with that I fell to thinking how I should like really to go out on to the steppe, and there to fall asleep under a warm, dry bank.

As for the deacon, he was still slumbering at my feet--slumbering with his breast, the breast of a prize-fighter, turned uppermost, and his fine, golden shock of hair falling like a nimbus around his head, and hot, fat, flushed red features and gaping mouth and ceaselessly twitching moustache. In passing, I had noticed that his hands were long, and that they were set upon shovel-shaped wrists.

Next I found myself imagining the scene as the powerful figure of this man embraced a woman. Probably her face would become lost to sight in his beard, until nothing of her features remained visible. Then, when the beard began to tickle her, she would throw back her head, and laugh. And the children that such a man might have begotten!

All this only made it the more painful and disagreeable to me to reflect that the breast of a human being of such a type should be bearing a burden of sorrow. Surely naught but joy should have been present therein!

Meanwhile, the old woman's gentle face was still peering at me through the doorway, and presently the first beam of sunlight came glancing through the window-space. Above the rivulet's silky glimmer, a transparent mist lay steaming, while trees and herbage alike were passing through that curiously inert stage when at any moment (so one fancied) they might give themselves a shake, and burst into song, and in keys intelligible to the soul alone, set forth the wondrous mystery of their existence.

"What a good man he is!" the old woman whispered plaintively as she gazed at the deacon's gigantic frame. Whereafter, as though reading aloud from a book invisible to my sight, she proceeded quietly and simply to relate the story of his wife.

"You see," she went on "his lady committed a certain sin with a certain man; and folk remarked this, and, after setting the husband on to the couple, derided him--yes, him, our Demid!--for the reason that he persisted in forgiving the woman her fault. At length the jeers made her take to her room and him to liquor, and for two years past he has been drinking, and soon is going to be deprived of his office. One who scarcely drank at all, my poor husband, used to say: 'Ah, Demid, yield not to these folk, but live your own life, and let theirs be theirs, and yours, yours.'"

With the words, tears welled from the old woman's dim, small eyes, and became merged with the folds and wrinkles on her grief-stained cheeks. And in the presence of that little head, a head shaking like a dead leaf in the autumn time, and of those kindly features so worn with age and sorrow, my eyes fell, and I felt smitten with shame to find that, on searching my soul for at least a word of consolation to offer to the poor fellow-mortal before me, I could discover none that seemed suitable.

But at length there recurred to my mind some strange words which I had encountered in I know not what antique volume --words which ran:

"Let not the servants of the Gods lament but, rather, rejoice, in that weeping and lamentation grieve both the Gods and mankind."

Thereafter, I muttered confusedly:

"It is time that I was going."

"What?" was her hasty exclamation, an exclamation uttered as though the words had affrighted her. Whereafter, with quivering lips, she began hesitantly and uncertainly to fumble in her bodice.

"No, I have no need of money," I interposed. "Only, if you should be so willing, give me a piece of bread."

"You have no need of money? " she re-echoed dubiously.

"No, none. For that matter, of what use could it be to me?"

"Well, well!" she said after a thoughtful pause. "Then be it as you wish, and--and I thank you."

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The sun, as he rose and ascended towards the blue of the firmament, was spreading over the earth a braggart, peacock-like tail of beams. And as he did so, I winked at him, for by experience I knew that some two hours later his smiles would be scorching me with fire. Yet for the time being he and I had no fault to find with one another. Wherefore, I set myself to search for a bank whence I might sing to him, as to the Lord of Life:

0h Thou of intangible substance, Reveal now that substance to me!

Enwrap me within the great vestment Of light which encompasseth Thee!

That with Thy uprising, my substance May Come all-prevailing to be!

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"Let us live our lives unto ourselves. Let theirs be theirs, and ours, ours."