"Heavens!"/Chapter 12
XII.
Father Cvok lived on in his quiet, retired way as heretofore. He seldom went anywhere, and his open hearted, simple character never minded the gossip going on around him. He did not pore so much over his books as before. Pepíc̓ek , who had crept completely into his heart, often gave him more food for thought than the deepest systems of philosophers, or the finest verses of poets. He came down from the heights of a more or less ideal life to the joys and cares of reality; and many a thing he had hardly regarded before, now, through Pepíc̓ek, became a subject worth thinking about, and so interesting besides, that his mind and heart felt refreshed like a tree after abundant rain. The soaring elasticity of youth could not, of course, come back to him any more, for he was already nearing old age; but even old trees sometimes grow green and bud out afresh, and bear better and more juicy fruit than younger ones.
It was not, it is true, the full, complete family life that turned all at once his humble dwelling upside down; but it was a beautiful part of it, and it confirmed Cvok in the truth, known to him hitherto only in poetical books, that family life regenerates decaying humanity, cheering it in the sad decline of advanced age, which otherwise would be barren of blossoms and fruit.
In bringing up children, we forget old age and the grave. And what is there that can better or more agreeably season life, which in itself is often insipid enough?
Cvok had not been in the habit of going much anywhere; he went out still less now; and yet the days passed with him as quickly as the summer with an old man, or a dance to a pair of lovers. He had not been at Suchdol since Pepíc̓ek was brought to his house, and if his ears had reason to be hot, he did not think that just in that quarter much was said about him.
Some days after Naninka had found Jenny’s little son under the hazel bush in the garden, the bricklayer’s wife of Záluz̓í went on some errand to Suchdol. Spinster Regina met her, and brought her into the house to have a little talk with her. She had heard some reports about Heavens, and was very curious to hear the whole truth.
“Sit down, my dear—sit down. What news from your parts?”
The bricklayer’s wife put down her back-basket under bench near the kitchen door, and sat down. Then wiping her mouth with her apron, as if to make it ready for a fine gossip, she replied—
“Oh, news enough; a pair of horses could hardly carry it all. Father Cvok’s house is like as if it didn’t belong to a priest any more.”
“You don’t say so! What dreadful thing can have happened?”
“Don’t you know anything about it, Miss Regina? Haven’t you heard anything?”
“Nothing whatever, my good woman—or, at least, next to nothing. Where do I go? Nowhere. Wait a bit. I have some coffee left from breakfast; refresh yourself.”
The eyes of the bricklayer’s wife sparkled. For a good cup of coffee she was ready to tell news till the next morning. She praised the fine smell of the coffee, took a sip, and began a litany that was enough to put all the saints into a fever. Miss Regina listened till her chin trembled, and presently was so much astonished that her eyes seemed ready to start from their sockets.
Seeing that her news produced such an effect, the bricklayer’s wife did not spare her lungs, but added so much from her own invention that there appeared no end to the story. At last she finished her coffee, stroked the pot with her left hand, thanked Miss Regina, and said—
“My goodness me! Here I am talking away, and forgetting completely what I came to Suchdol for!”
After begging Miss Regina for her life not to mention a word to any one of what she had confided to her, lest trouble might arise, if it became known, the bricklayer’s wife took her departure.
Regina went that moment straight into the garden to Ledecký, who was sitting in an arbour covered with wild hops, preparing his Sunday’s sermon.
“Do you see,” she called out, even while at some distance, “that it is all true what I told you!”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean! What does Záluz̓í mean? what Labutín? What does the whole country round mean? Just now the bricklayer’s wife from Záluz̓í was with me.”
“The bricklayer’s wife is a gossip.”
“Oh! with you every woman is a gossip. But what is true is true, and can’t be whitewashed over. That imp in the priest’s house at Záluz̓í is no such thing as the child of Naninka’s niece. That’s only a cover. The child is as near to Heavens himself as a son can be to father!”
Don’t make me angry, Regina! You always find something bad to say about the priest of Záluz̓í, just because I lend him a trifle now and then. He is sure to pay it back. This is all a stupid piece of gossip.”
The housekeeper had a lot of objections and observations to make about this. At last the priest said impatiently, “You have one of your bad days to-day, Regina; you are quite unbearable.”
“Oh yes, I believe you! When a person is getting old, then she is unbearable! Miss Jenny would do better. You never said of her that she was unbearable!”
Ledecký kept silent.
The housekeeper went on: “But I tell you, your reverence, that if Heavens comes here to us, I’ll give him a piece of my mind. I won’t pocket such a scoldnig from you, on his account, all for nothing!”
“You will do no such thing!” said Ledecký, with energetic firmness, measuring her with a stern, angry look.
Spinster Regina knew that look very well. She bit her blue lips, while her whole body trembled with rage. She snapped off a twig from the bush, and breaking it into a hundred bits, went back to the house.
This was the introduction to a visit from Father Cvok, who just at that very time was already on his way to Suchdol.
For even Cvok, who was always as mild, and as free from gall and bitterness, as a very dove, had felt his blood boiling within him that same morning, and his mind trembling with such excitement as only he can know whose just and upright spirit has been suddenly and undeservedly wounded in its deepest feelings—and that by a man, too, whom he respected and loved above all other men.
Early in the morning, after Mass, a messenger had brought him a registered letter from the town. It was from Father Mathew Neducha, a man far advanced in age, who had been for many years to Cvok like a part of his own soul. Twelve years they had spent together in the same form at school, first at the Latin school, and later on in the priests’ seminary. Even their holidays were spent together, alternately at their respective homes. Both were naturally of a pious, thoughtful disposition, calm and gentle in character, and not easily excited. They were both fond of soaring into ideal heights and feeding their minds with ideal food. Later on they differed, it is true, on many a minor point. Neducha receded more and more from the world and its interests, and bid fair to become an ascetic—which he actually did eventually. Cvok, on the other hand, did not condemn the innocent pleasures the world has to offer, though he never forgot to observe moderation in all things, nor neglected the practice of self-denial in his daily life and conduct. Besides, he read and thought more independently than Neducha, and loved to enlarge his mind with science and human philosophy; while Neducha humbly and contentedly acquiesced in what his Church prescribed and permitted. Sometimes in riper years our two friends disagreed on such points as these, but never so much as to cause any coolness or separation between them; because, after all, they were both only seeking to arrive at truth, and though they followed different ways, they led them to the same goal—to a godly life on earth, and a just reward in the world beyond. And though after their ordination many miles separated them, still the friends did not forget each other, but exchanged letters from time to time. These, it is true, were fewer and fewer as years went on, yet their intercourse had never ceased entirely. Sometimes they met at a place settled upon beforehand, and such a meeting was always a holiday for both, which they remembered long after. For want of means they both had to walk on foot to their respective railway stations and back, and yet they were happier than many a well-fed prelate, with the soft cushions of a spring-carriage at his disposal.
Father Neducha at first did not even wish to accept of a living, from Christian humility; but as no priest with whom he was placed as curate satisfied him in point of godliness, he at last accepted a small living, rivalling in its poverty that of Záluz̓í. His parishioners looked up to him as to a saint. He never took any meat, coffee, or spirituous drink, lived very moderately, and gladly shared the little he had with the poor. He never went to visit a sick person otherwise than on foot, even in hail, rain, and snow that no one would have driven a dog out in. And many were the nights he spent by the bed-sides of the sick and dying, comforting, teaching, and preparing them for the solemn change. His leisure hours he liked best to spend amongst the children in the school. In short, he considered life on earth to be only a preparation for eternity; and whenever he entered a house, there seemed to enter with him a palpable saintliness, which filled young and old with love and awe.
Father Cvok knew no one in the whole world whom he loved and respected so much as Neducha. When he had done a particularly good deed, he used to say to himself, “Neducha would surely approve of that.” In short , Neducha was his hero in everything, and he surrounded him with a halo of friendship and love.
How great was his pleasure, then, when the messenger handed him the letter! He broke the seal hastily, that he might enjoy his friend’s words without delay. But he read and read again and again; he could not believe his eyes. He turned deadly pale, and trembled visibly. The contents of the letter stunned him!
Father Neducha wrote that he had heard things about him which troubled his mind so much that for two nights he had not been able to close his eyes in sleep. When he had got the account, or from whom, he did not say, he had probably forgotten it in the trouble of his mind. Furthermore, that he (Neducha) had broken, long ago all the ties that bound him to this world; in one only of them all had he still indulged—in the love to his old tried friend Václav. And now, even in this he must say that all he had found in the things of earthly life and friendship was—vanity of vanities. The account he had heard, wrenched these severe words from him. Then he entered into the pith of the matter itself, and wrote in his dry but cutting way, that he had got the fully guaranteed report that Cvok, who had been a just man before God for fifty years of his life, had succumbed to the snares of the enemy, and conceived a condemnable passion for some companion in the Castle of Labutín, that he harboured the fruit of this passion openly in his own dwelling, to the scandal and temptation of the souls God had committed to his charge; that Cvok not only did not repent of his perjury and abominable offence, but but he, as if in defiance of the Almighty, exposed it before everybody, and, to crown all, screened himself with the lie that the child belonged to the relations of a pious old housekeeper.
“Václav, my unfortunate friend,” cried Father Neducha in his letter, “is it indeed you yourself, or are you some reckless plaything in the hands of the devil? For the sake of our Lord’s bitter death, I beseech you to awake and remember that your last hour will surely come some day, and you will have to give an account of yourself before the Eternal Judge! The crown of all evil has become your portion; the grace of the Lord has forsaken you; and if you do not endeavour with all your might, labouring day and night, to have it return into your heart and soul, what will become of you?”
Such words—and, above all, from Neducha—were to poor Cvok like a fiery sword that cut his heart in two. He was free from the greater sin Neducha had charged him with—but still in one thing his good, faithful friend is right; he had forsaken the way of truth and screened himself with a lie; he had turned away from his God! He fell into a painful reverie.
Miss Naninka entered the parlour just at that moment, and seeing the reverend father to be evidently troubled, went out again without having been noticed by him. After a while she came back with Pepíc̓ek in her arms, if with the intention of comforting him. The baby throve visibly, and his proud foster-mother declared he is beginning to take notice already.
The child smiled at Cvok as if he knew his benefactor, and stretched out his arms to him. Our friend’s eyes grew brighter and his heart felt some relief. He involuntarily took the baby’s little hand and kissed it, but he did not take him into his arms as he was wont to do. Miss Naninka saw it, but made no remark.
“Who knows,” said Cvok, after a while, in a depressed tone, “if we shall not be obliged to put Pepíc̓ek out of the house?”
“Then I’ll go with him, if he goes,” answered the housekeeper very decidedly.
“Well,” replied Cvok, “we shall see—we shall see. I must go to Suchdol to-day on an important errand. I hope to be back in the evening.”
Naninka did not say anything, but stayed in the room with the baby. Cvok walked up and down for a while, then he took out a ten-florin note from his writing-table, put it into his pocket-book, and, fetching his hat and walking-stick, said good-bye, and went out. Naninka with Pepíc̓ek in her arms, stood at the window and looked after him as long as he was in sight.
“I wonder if perhaps the old baroness” she mumbled, without finishing the sentence. “But, whatever it is, I won’t forsake the child. No, no, my darling, I won’t forsake you!”
And she folded the baby to her good old heart.