The Best Continental Short Stories of 1923-1924/The Death of the Old Deemster

by Lauri Pohjanpää

THE DEATH OF THE OLD DEEMSTER^[1]

By LAURI POHJANPAA

 

THAT day of July was warmer than any during the whole rainless, hot summer. Vanhakylä–a hamlet on the banks of a small lake—lay exposed to the burning and parching heat of the sun. It seemed as if the grey houses and cottages, surrounded by hurdle fences, had thronged together just in order to get shadow from each other against the merciless, burning rays. But vainly, for the long rainless period had, as it were, baked heat into the walls of the buildings, and now the heat was thrown back into the air. The sun was burning from a cloudless sky, the highroad was burning under the feet of the children, the walls and the stones were burning. The meadows had acquired a light brown colour, singed by the sun; the cattle still remaining in the village stood in the warm water of the lake along the reeds, exhausted by the heat. Even the church standing on the hill outside the village suffered; on its walls the air quivered, giving an impression of small burning wicks, and the old logs in the walls sweated resin.

The only place that did not seem to feel anything of the heat that tortured the whole village was the estate of the old deemster on the opposite side of the lake. But no wonder, for the estate was quite isolated and lay aristocratically alone surrounded by its garden. It was quite sheltered in the shade of the tall aspens and the aged maple trees. The leaves of the aspens moved slightly even in the dead calm, as fans lazily waving round some oriental prince. Only the “sauna,” the Finnish steam-bath, peeped out from the shadow, its wall in the sun; it stood, as it were, on tiptoe, at the water’s edge and it looked as if it were ready to retire into the shadow of the trees. The greyish main building with a curb-roof did not show itself at all, but rowing out to the midst of the lake you could perceive its green windows as evil eyes staring at the disturbers of the peace.

In the house of the old deemster it was always dull, dark and silent. The only voice heard in the house was that of the old deemster himself; you got the impression that all others in this abode merely whispered. But the old deemster spoke the louder. When he stood, still a stately and tall man, in the midst of the sunny mansion court, he spoke as a field-marshal would have addressed a whole army; when the air was calm his voice carried to every farm in Vanhakyla and everywhere the children ran away seeking a hiding place.

Deemster Ludvig Lindencrona was about eighty-five years old and stone blind, but he still lorded over the estate with unbroken strength of mind. He had been left alone, like an old pine in a young plantation, his sons and grandsons having died. Except himself, only the widow of his grandson, Agnes, and her daughter, Margaret, a girl of seven, lived on the estate. Although Agnes Lindencrona was almost thirty years old, the deemster treated her as a child to whom one could entrust nothing.

That day of July the old deemster was sitting in his easy chair as was his habit, straight and stiff. The easy chair was drawn up to the chest and in the chest were all the keys of the house. Although he had been ailing for a few days, the deemster wore a black frock coat, a white necktie and boots of patent leather. He had, with Napoleonic gesture, put his right hand inside the coat; at his outstretched left hand sat the shy and pale Margaret, the eye and servant of the deemster, on a small hassock. The white wig and the whiskers, the angles over the empty eyes and the strong, clean-shaven chin gave the face of the deemster an aristocratic expression. In old age he had preserved his majestic air. The heavy mahogany furniture reflected the master’s solemnity, even the worn-out pieces of the furniture had something severe about them, and the tears in the sofa cover gaped hostilely. The room, as indeed the whole house, was dark and musty; the air was sultry because nobody was allowed to open the window.

On one of the chairs in the doorway, was sitting the late Clerk of Assize, Nyholm. As a rule he was to be found sitting there; when not, the deemster would send a word round for him to come. This man had lately become indispensable to the deemster, who required someone to speak to, or rather to listen to his monologues. Nyholm was a trembling old fogey, in whose mouth only one tooth had been left as a memory of happier times, but his red-blue nose, striking witness to his bosom sin, was still a good interpreter of his unquenchable love of life, although his strength was gone. Nyholm was hardly smaller than his master, so the old suits of the deemster suited him well—although they turned as threadbare as he was himself. In the village the tails of the old frockcoat still fluttered neatly, so well suited were they to the clerk's tripping way of walking, but as soon as the late Clerk of Assize stood in front of the deemster, he became a miserable sinner—in front of the deemster all grew smaller.

Nyholm was sitting in his usual place prattling with his toothless mouth, piously twinkling with his eyes—answering the questions of the deemster.

"How do you find our fields, Nyholm?"

"Very good, your honour, very good, indeed, ye-es."

"You are lying, you old crow, as if I shouldn't know. Tell the truth straight out. Shamefully bad are they. The ditches are full of osiery, the fields of bad weeds."

"Oh, but no, your honour, no, no."

"Be silent and don't interrupt me. I know better than you. Here is everything going to the dogs because I am blind. All are stealing, the man-servant steals, the maids steal, perhaps you do, too. Is the rye flowering?"

"I dare say it is flowering, oh, yes."

"Again you are lying. Why do you come here with your tales? It has not flowered yet. But what should you know, when you are drinking all the time?"

"No, no, your honour. No, baron, the times are bad, I haven't got as much as that…"

"Who is there? Is it Agnes?" asked the deemster, feeling that somebody had slipped into the room.

"Please will you give me the key to the shed?"

"What are you going to do?"

"We want to bake."

"Are you mad, to bake by this weather? You want to set the house on fire as you can't destroy it any other way—eh? And what would you bake? Is it already my funeral feast you are all preparing for? I am not going to die yet."

"The people have no bread."

"Give them hay. We are not going to bake until it has rained, do you understand?"

The shadow has vanished. Nyholm laughs and giggles in silence in the doorway, pressing his hands between his knees.

"Oh, it is blazing hot; my mouth feels parched," says he, cautiously feeling the ground.

"Blazing hot, is it? I know—you want brandy, that's it, you old drunkard. But you shan't get a drop today, not a drop."

Nyholm kept his countenance; it was not the first time he was "driving for the parson."^[2] He twinkles cunningly with his eyes: he knows the trick of it.

"Well, I must be going now, I just came to inquire about your honour's precious health. You seem to be very well today, baron, ye-es, I see it to my satisfaction."

"Oh, you find that," said the deemster, reviving. "I see, I see. But where are you going, old friend? Margaret, tell mother to have some corn-brandy brought for Nyholm, and yes, why not? To me a glass of wine. And please, have a look on the highroad lest anybody should come."

Nyholm laughs again, bent forward, an old man's laugh, chuckling to himself, rubbing his hands against his chin. The deemster's aromatic corn-brandy is the best of its kind.

It is brought to him in a round, small, thick-bellied bottle.

"I have the honour most humbly to drink your Lordship's health." Nyholm was proposing his usual toast. In connection with corn-brandy the deemster is always "your Lordship."

"Ah, how good and refreshing for my dry bones," says the late Clerk of Assize then, and speaking continually— lest the deemster should observe it—he takes another dram.

"The deuce, how that hand of mine shakes."

On his cheeks appears a faint blush and the eyes grow more devotional. He will soon be in a state to listen to the soliloquy of the deemster; he coughs more intimately. But this time he will not hear the deemster's speech for at that moment Margaret opens the door and says:

"The vicar."

"Nobody else on the road?"

"Nobody."

Nyholm has still time to gulp down a couple of drams and to slip out as the vicar enters the room.

Mr. Tuominen, the vicar, a fat, mild-looking country parson, is dressed in clerical garb and holds in his hands a case containing the Holy Communion—lest it should be required. Even he is rather uncertain in his movements when speaking to the deemster.

"I am very glad to see you out of bed, my dear deemster."

"Out of bed! Ought I to lie in bed, or perhaps in a coffin? It looks as if some people are just waiting for that. Why did you come? Did I call for you, Parson?"

The deemster never liked to call Mr. Tuominen vicar. The only vicar for him was Dean Gustaf Adolf Grénberg, who about a year before had been moved to another parish.

"I heard that you were ill, deemster . . ."

" . . . and you have probably prepared my funeral sermon already, and got it in your pocket, eh? No, Parson, I am not yet going to die, nothing of the kind, and it is a great pity for your pathetic sermon. I am still waiting for a guest. I won't die before he has called, I have something very important to tell him. Margaret! Where is the girl again? Oh, there you are, Margaret! Are you quite sure you didn't see anybody coming? Oh, I see, yes—sit down, my child, and wait. And you, Mr. Parson, don't for goodness' sake move your feet like that! You are not going yet. Remain seated while you are here. It was nice of you to come, all the same. And now you could speak to me, miserable sinner that I am—words of comfort. But not too many words! Come, begin!"

And the vicar spoke in his mild manner. He was anxious, and hoped to be able by means of soft words to get below the icy crust and find the way to the heart of the old man. The deemster listened, head erect, the angles over the eyes drawn high up towards the forehead.

"Listen, Parson," said he after the vicar had finished, "listen, Parson, to what I have to say to you. With all your honeyed words you only make women weep—with all your syrup. Of course, it is all right, but you must make it harsher and stronger and not like food for little children. Have you ever heard that God is a consuming fire? Moses saw God in a burning shrub—that's a fine thing—you would never have been able to see that. You never hear God speaking in fire and in the tempest that breaks mountains; you apprehend him only in the soughing of a faint wind. Do you know, Parson, who it was who once said: I have come to kindle a fire on earth,—yes, a fire. But nowadays one never hears about fire in sermons. One sees only such soft and womanish milkmouths as, for instance, yourself—yes, and even my sons and grandsons died as flies. Erik didn't even leave a son behind him—oh, no, no, Margaret, you are not to blame, no, please run to the road and see if anybody is coming! Yes—what was I saying? Oh, yes, that God is fire. Fire purifies and makes hard. All that is best within us is akin to fire. Isn't that very strange? We have fire under our feet and above our heads, the fire of the earth and the fire of the sun. Earth is born of fire and shall perish in fire, just as we ourselves.... Yes, of fire are we born, and-don't try to interrupt me! Only he who worships the fire will be able to perform great deeds. As for instance, Napoleon. Napoleon was a worshiper of fire. He had a divine thought: first fire, then peace; the millennium will be born of the fire. Do you know why Napoleon perished? Because he fell away from the fire. Fire destroys him who is faithless to it. Napoleon almost succeeded, but...even he was after all a milksop. I know it. I am, I was"—here the voice of the old deemster turns to a whisper—"I was, as you certainly have heard, summoned to a great task" (the old deemster had told it many times before), "to be a general and a statesman, I won't specify in what high position. Well, it didn't come off, and it doesn't matter now anyhow. But—I hope I can trust in your discretion—I nevertheless influenced the current of the world politics, secretly, you know, by way of thought and mind. Oh, if you knew, Parson, what I do! Even this emperor, who calls himself Nicolaus II by the grace of God—it is blasphemy, I say. In that man there is no fire. I have the courage to say it, and nobody shall send me to Siberia, for angels in thousands keep guard around me this emperor wouldn't reign one day more, if I did not allow it. But I am still waiting or, rather, I have been waiting. For the sake of Finland, I love this stupid people. Today a guest will call on me, or perhaps tomorrow, and great things will happen, but that doesn't matter either. Only this much will I say, that if that perjurer who calls himself Nicolaus II doesn't do what I want in reference to Finland, he and his empire will perish in fire. Oh, it will be a splendid conflagration, you will see! Again today I spoke to the archangel Gabriel and to Napoleon...Napoleon is, on account of his merits, commander-in-chief of the heavenly hosts. But when I shall come to that place where he is now, the archangel Gabriel will say to him: 'Step down from your white horse' (and Napoleon will step down) Instead of you Ludvig Lindencrona will take the place that was intended for him from the beginning of the world."

The old deemster had risen and spoke the last words with a voice quivering with emotion and was nearly crying without noticing it himself. He was beautiful to look at standing upright, one arm high in the air and the blind eyes turned upwards—an old disciple of Swedenborg, who in the years of his blindness, had become a worshiper of Fire.

Meanwhile the vicar had risen, too, and showed signs of going.

"Look look quickly," whispered the deemster suddenly and stared with a curious air..."there, behind the maple tree..."

"What, what is it?"

"Now it stops and looks toward us, oh, good God, how it looks...now it is going on again..."

"I don't see anything."

"And what could you see? Now it has already vanished! I see, though blind, better than you, who have sight. It was absolutely distinct, the uniform of the marshal...the three-cornered hat. And he looked at me. It was Napoleon. Napoleon passed there and greeted me. I know very well what it means."

The deemster retired once more into his shell and let Margaret follow the vicar out. It was the usual hour for his daily round through the place. He went to survey the field of rye, touched with his hands the sheaves of rye, caressing them and inhaling their odour, walked through the meadow to the cattle-shed, where the cow had calved, and to the stable, where the black state horse got bread. The people were today on the meadows far from the house. After his walk round the house the deemster stopped in the middle of the court. The sun was burning. A motionless, ill-omened silence weighed heavily.

"Margaret," said the deemster suddenly, "can you see smoke anywhere?"

But before Margaret had time to answer, an outcry was heard from afar:

"The church is on fire!"

"The church is on fire!" was echoed also from the village. On the road women and children appeared suddenly, staring in the direction of the church, afraid and perplexed as men are when faced by some terrible, inconceivable stroke of destiny. The wall of the church nearest the wood was the first to kindle, but the flames already sparkled high over the roof. At the same time a flame flickered round the corner of the church, hesitated for a moment, and hurled itself swiftly in mad rush against the wall next the village, spread with inconceivable speed all over it, reached the ridge, ran like a squirrel to the edge of the steep shingle roof, rose high in the air, and came back to devour the laths. From the court of the deemster's house one could hear the crash of the window glasses. The incipient draught excited the fire to a more violent rage.

A man ran onto the road with a bucket in his hand, another followed. A few minutes later the doors of the church tower flew open with a crash and the bells began to ring furiously. There was something awe-inspiring in the swift sound of the bell through the noon of the summer week day; the strokes fell like hailstones into the crowd on the road. It was like the tolling of the bells of doom. The church burned up like a pile of dry wood, the flames rushing out of the windows like black-red tongues. "Quick, quick, come, come," cried the bells, with their last strength.

"Fire, fire, I know it," murmured the old deemster in his court, looking with his blind eyes towards the fire. It was impossible to save the church; the lake was too far and there were not enough hands to carry water. Mark—now the fire has reached the roof of the tower and torn it open; a moment later also the shingle roof of the grave digger's cottage. The flames, hardly visible in the daylight, ate greedily into the dry shingles. Men ceased to work as if stricken with paralysis; the fire was in the village—what should be done?...They ran to and fro. On the road, the late Clerk of Assize Nyholm waved his arms and whirled them round like a wind-vane. From all directions men rushed to the place, some galloping on horseback through the ryefields. The church bell beat quickly, irregularly, as in agony, and suddenly it ceased as if cut with a knife. The tower, too, was lost. The crepitation and the crashing of the fire could now be heard more distinctly. The church bell fell down to the foot of the tower with a hollow detonation. Everybody trembled: it was like the sign of the end, men thought, though nobody dared say it. Now all the powers of hell were let loose. Resistance was futile. Some people ran, hatchet in hand, to the wood; others tore down the inflammable roofs of the houses. But over all this running to and fro, over the heads of the weeping, moaning crowd, flashed and flickered the flames, leaping from roof to roof, from house to house....Now the farm of Rekola took fire, now that of Alitalo...It is a feast day for the god of fire, surely, and there is wonderfully dry wood in Vanhakylä.

The old deemster stood in ecstasy in his yard on the other side of the lake and shouted, the reflected glare of the fire playing finely on his face.

"Fire, fire, I see the great fire that is to come. Of fire are we born and to fire shall we return."

The whole village was now aflame, burning in every corner. The heat was terrific. People were running head first into the lake, to wet their heads and bodies in the water, though it was nearly boiling. Some of them stopped there altogether and waded about with water up to the waist, looking on as helpless fools at the raging fire. From the houses around the lake all that was movable was thrown into the water: pots, kettles, parts of beds, chairs and other furniture; from Rekola's, the richest house in the village, a new piano was thrown in the water. The owner of Rekola, an assistant judge in the county court, who usually walked round his yard in shirt sleeves, hands behind his back, was running to and fro like a fool, weeping like a child and saying something nobody understood or had time to listen to. Somebody had saved a picture and carried it under his arm; the widow of the chanter had locked up her money hurriedly in a desk and witnessed the burning of her cottage, the key of the desk convulsively grasped in her hand. Here and there in the midst of fire and smoke men were working half-naked, the sweat running in black, sooty streaks down their backs. The women wept, the children cried and the men shouted to each other, the cattle ran roaring along the fields. Everywhere there was heard the crackling of the fire and the crash of the falling roof girders.

And suddenly....

In the middle of the uproar and disorder there rode into the village on a foaming horse a black-dressed stranger. When he entered the village, his horse rose on its hind legs and refused to move; in fear of the whip, however, it went ahead, and flew through the village, ears straight backwards, like a whirlwind. The people got out of the way, frightened. What was this?-it was more horrid than the fire! Good heavens! Death was surely riding through the village.

"Somebody is coming with great speed in our direction," said the shivering Margaret in the court of the deemster.

"It is he, I knew he would come now," said the deemster with a strange voice. "Let us go inside, Margaret. Agnes, where are you? Let me lean on you, I am strangely tired."

The old deemster went with heavy steps into his room, on the walls of which the light of the fire flickered, went to the desk, opened it and took out of it a heavy, sealed letter. At that moment the vicar, Gustaf Adolf Grönberg, drove into the court in his carriage, jumped down and rushed in.

"You came just in time," said the deemster slowly. "Here is the letter to the emperor, who calls himself Nicolaus II. Give it to the archbishop and let the archbishop give it to him. On this letter depends the fate of Finland and of all Russia."

The old deemster tottered backwards and fell into the arms of Agnes Lindecrona and the vicar. They carried him onto his bed. The deemster sighed twice, almost imperceptibly, and died.

Behind the windows, on the other side of the lake, the village of Vanhakylä burned itself steadily out.

1. Judge―this term is still used on the Isle of Man and in Finland.
2. A finnish proverb.