The Little Karoo/Chapter 3
III: The Miller
ANDRIES LOMBARD, the miller in the mountains at Mijnheer van der Merwe's farm of Harmonie, was a stupid kindly man whom illness had turned into a morose and bitter one. He was a tall gaunt Dutchman from the Malgas district, with black hair, black eyes, and a thick, square, black beard. Round his neck he wore an eel-skin which his wife Mintje had tramped sixteen miles down the Aangenaam valley to borrow from old Tan' Betje Ferreira of Vetkuil. The eel-skin had cured many coughs in Tan' Betje's family, but God knows how it was, though Andries wore it day and night it did not cure him of spitting blood. And in the month of September, when, in the Aangenaam valley, other men planted their lands with sweet-potatoes and pumpkins and mealies, the miller said to his wife:
"I will not plant my lands. If I plant me now my lands surely by the time that it comes for me to dig my potatoes and gather me my mealies I shall be dead of this cough that I have from the dust in the mill. And so surely as I am dead, the day that I am buried they will drive you out of this house in the rocks and to the man that comes after me they will give my potatoes and mealies. So I will not plant my lands. God help you, Mintje, when I am dead and they drive our children and you out in the veld the day that I am buried, but I will not plant my lands for the man that comes after me."
All this Andries had said on a cold, clear, spring morning, sitting out in front of the mill coughing in the sun. He did not, in fact, believe that his master, a just and generous man who even now sent help up to the mill when work there was heavy, would drive Mintje and her children like beasts out in the veld when he died, but it gave him a strange malicious pleasure to say it and to make Mintje believe it. Mintje was a timid, humble woman who loved her husband and ran to serve him with quick fluttering movements like those of a frightened hen. But, unlike a hen, she ran always in silence, and it was the new cunning of his illness which had taught Andries how to make her suffer in this silence. If God, Who loved him, made the miller suffer, he, who loved Mintje, would make Mintje suffer. So it was that Andries reasoned, and through all his blundering cruelty, and through the wild and bitter exultation with which her tears and the quick rise and fall of her bosom filled him, there ran the memory of his old affection for her and the yearning for her love.
Through the spring and summer months, while his lands lay desolate on the mountainside, the miller's illness rapidly increased. He made no effort to control the sudden bursts of fury which more and more frequently possessed him, and which drove his children from him in terror. He delighted in their terror as he delighted in Mintje's tears. Yet invariably after these storms his heart was tormented by a remorseful tenderness for which he could find no expression. There were days when Andries, having driven Mintje away from him, would have given all the world to call her back again to speak with her of his sorrow and his love. He never spoke of either. It was to make Mintje suffer that, in the autumn, when other men gathered their harvests, he dug for himself a grave in a corner of his empty lands. It was to make her suffer again that, in the month of May, when the pastor of Platkops came on his yearly visit to the Aangenaam valley, Andries refused, for the first time since their marriage, to go with his wife to the Thanksgiving at Harmonie.
"Why then should I go?" he cried. "Is there a thing this day in my lands but the grave that I have dug there? Is it for my grave that you would have me praise the Lord? Go you, then, if you will, and praise him for it, Mintje, but surely I will not."
So it was that on the Thanksgiving morning Andries sat alone in front of the mill while Mintje and his children went down the mountain-side to Harmonie. The square whitewashed church, built by Mijnheer van der Merwe for the Aangenaam valley, stood at a little distance from the homestead, close to a poplar-grove near the Aangenaam river. Round about it went four straight white paths made of the stones which Mijnheer van der Merwe's sons had dug out of the mountainside for gold. They had found no gold, and the old man had cried:
"It is well, my children! The judgments of the Lord are more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold." And round his white church he had put their white stones as a sign to his sons from the Lord.
It was to these straight white paths that, on the Thanksgiving morning, the men of' the Aangenaam valley brought their gifts of pumpkins and mealies, dried fruit, corn, goats, pigs and poultry. On a long trestle-table in front of the church door the women spread their offerings of baked meats and pastries, their konfijts and wafels and custards and cakes. Every year, for eleven years, Mintje had taken must-rusks to the table, and Andries had taken pumpkins and mealies to the paths. This year the miller had nothing to give and no wish to give. But, when he drove her from him, Mintje carried as always her offering of rusks tied up in a spotless white cloth.
For a little while after Mintje left him Andries sat brooding in front of the mill. Mintje had left him in tears, but to-day her tears had brought him no pleasure. There was a pain in his chest, in his heart, and a strange humming lightness in his head. The morning air was sharp and clear, and in it the voices of his children came back to him shrill and sweet as they scrambled like conies among the rocks. Mintje's voice he did not hear, and suddenly it was the one sound in all the world that he wished to hear. If Mintje would but turn and call to him: "Andries! Andries!" he would go to her, and this pain in his chest, this lightness in his head would surely leave him. . . . But Mintje did not call. She did not even dare to turn and look back. Timid, humble, down the mountainside she went, in little, quick, fluttering runs, to thank the Lord through her tears for His many mercies.
Down in the valley at Harmonie carts and waggons were now being outspanned, and close to the low mud wall of the church-land a fire had been lighted for coffee-making. From his plank seat in front of the mill Andries could see the smoke of this fire rising straight up into the clear blue sky like a burnt-offering to the Lord. In the poplar-grove the winter sunshine turned the tall yellowing trees into spires of gold. Through Mevrouw van der Merwe's flower-garden, and through the grove, ran the brown bubbling stream which up here in the mountains turned the mill-wheel. The stream joined the Aangenaam river close to the little white-washed store where the old Russian Jew-woman, Esther Sokolowsky, kept shop with her grandson Elijah. Every year the Jew-woman, who went by no other name in the valley, baked a cake for the Thanksgiving. Andries, looking down now on the store, remembered how, for the first Thanksgiving. after she came to Harmonie, the Jew-woman, old and bent and thin, cringing like a hunted animal, with her thin grey hair tied up in a handkerchief, had come to Mevrouw van der Merwe with a cake on a blue and white plate. Standing on the stoep, where Andries was waiting for Mijnheer, the Jew-woman had said to Mevrouw:
"If it is not right for Mevrouw to take this cake that I have made, to sell it at the Thanksgiving for the Lord, let Mevrouw give it to her grandchildren, for it is a good cake that I have made for a thank-offering for my grandson and me."
And Mevrouw had answered: "Is not your Lord also my Lord?" And had herself carried the cake down to the table before the church door.
Every year round her cake the Jew-woman put a little frill of coloured paper, and when one opened this frill and held it up to the light one saw in it the little trees and houses, and the little strange animals which she had cut there. The paper frill had always been a source of wonder to the miller and his children, but for the old Jewess herself Andries had a pity that was not unmixed with fear. Terrible things had happened to the Jew-woman in her own country before she had escaped from it with her grandson Elijah. It was the memory of these things that made her creep about her house like a frightened animal. In no other human being had Andries ever seen such fear as one saw sometimes in the Jew-woman's eyes. . . . And now suddenly, as he sat in front of his mill on this Thanksgiving morning, it was not the Jew-woman's eyes that he saw before him, but his wife Mintje's, terror-stricken through her tears.
In an agony that was half physical, half mental, the miller rose from his seat. God forgive him, he thought in horror, but if it was the terrible things that had happened to her in her own country that had turned the Jew-woman into a frightened animal, it was he, Andries, who had turned Mintje into a nervous hen. . . . Mintje had not been a hen when he married her. When he married her she had been his little dove. Yes, like a little bird had she come fluttering into his arms on the day that he asked her to be his wife. . . . He could feel now the pressure of her dark brown head against his breast. He could hear now the first, shy, half-whispered "Andries! Andries!" of her wonder and her love. . . . God forgive him the evil he had done, but never again would he drive Mintje from him in tears. If he could but reach her now, to speak with her of his sorrow, this pain in his chest, this lightness in his head would surely go and she would be again his little dove, his little, gentle, fluttering bird, soft and warm against his breast.
Weak and shaken by emotion and pain, the miller had already crossed the mill-yard and was now making his way uncertainly down the mountain-side. Down in the valley they were ringing the old slave bell, which was now the church bell, and in the church-land men, women and children were gathering together for the opening psalm. Somewhere among them was Mintje, and now come what might of it, to Mintje the miller must go. As a worshipper to the Thanksgiving he would not and could not go. He had nothing to do with the Thanksgiving. Did not all the valley know that he had not planted his lands? Did not all the valley know that there was nothing this day in his lands but the grave that he had dug there? Could a man come so with empty hands to the Lord? It was not to the Lord that he was going now, but to Mintje. It was not the Lord who could ease his pain of body and mind. It was Mintje.
When he reached the quiet, deserted homestead the miller slipped into Mevrouw van der Merwe's flower-garden, and through it into the poplar-grove. If he could get close to the mud wall of the church-land he might perhaps be able to call to Mintje when she came, as was her custom, to help with the coffee-making at the fire. In the grove, cut off from the brilliant winter sunshine, the air was bitterly cold, and his body, which pain and exertion had thrown into a heavy sweat, grew suddenly chilled. Pushing his way through the undergrowth, coughing feebly, he came at last to a slight clearing from which he could see the gathering in the church-land. And here, leaning up against a tree-trunk, he halted.
In the church-land, facing the church door, the old, white-haired pastor of Platkops was addressing his people. On one side of him, bareheaded, stood the men and boys of the Aangenaam valley. On the other, the women and girls. In a group apart were the native servants, and behind the table stood Mevrouw van der Merwe and her daughters, with Classina October, the Kaffir girl, waving a cow-tail before them. Close to the table, among the women, stood Mintje, holding her little Andrina by the hand. The year had been a good one, and looking now from group to group it seemed to Andries that he alone, in all the valley, was not at the Thanksgiving. He and the Jew-woman, who though she baked a cake for the table, and came every year to look over the wall, remained always, by her faith, an outcast from the gathering.
Of what the pastor said Andries at first heard little. The humming in his ears was now intense, and added to it there was a new, suffocating pressure in his throat. Only for a moment, as the Jew-woman, creeping towards him, threw him into a sudden panic, did this pressure lessen, and in that moment he heard, with a curious, thin, almost painful distinctness, the pastor cry:
"Is it by gifts alone that a man shall be judged? Surely not, my children! So many men as there are in the world, so many ways there are to praise the Lord, and who can tell how another serves Him? Look, my little ones! The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart He will not despise, for He Himself has said it. . . .”
As suddenly as it had lifted the pressure in his ears, in his throat, descended upon him again, and the miller turned, wild-eyed and suffering, to the old Jewess for help. He tried to ask her to call Mintje to him, but he could not speak. Nor could he hear what it was that the Jew-woman, looking at him so strangely, said. For some reason which he could not understand she took him by the hand and began leading him away from the wall, through the grove, towards her store. The lightness in his head had gone now to his legs, and though his heart was still crying out for Mintje, his legs, which he could not control, were taking him away from her. He tried to explain this to the Jew-woman, but he could explain nothing, and in a vain effort to gain relief he put his hand up to his throat and tore the eel-skin from his neck. He stumbled, and as he stumbled blood rushed from his mouth soaking his beard, his shirt, his coat-sleeves. The Jew-woman drew him down on to a low mound among a little heap of rustling yellow leaves, and leaving him there, ran, unbuttoning her apron as she went, down to the stream. She dipped her apron into the clear running water and brought it back to press, icy cold, against his throat and chest. She took off her shawl and made a pillow for his head. She took off her handkerchief, letting her thin grey hair fall about her shoulders, and soaking the handkerchief held it to his lips. To and from the stream she ran till Andries, in an agony that at last gave him speech, cried:
"But Mintje! Mintje!" and struggling to rise, fell back fainting among the yellow leaves.
For a moment the old Jewess hesitated, then ran, back through the undergrowth, towards the church-land. Here, in the brilliant sunshine, men, women and children were singing together: "Praise God, ye servants of the Lord." They were still singing when Mintje, kneeling down by his side, drew the miller up into her arms and cried through her tears:
"Andries! Andries!"
The miller opened his eyes and saw above him the little dove, the little, gentle, fluttering bird to whom his love and sorrow were never now to be spoken. With a vague, weak movement he raised his arm and tried to draw Mintje's head down on to his blood-stained breast. He failed, slipped from her grasp into the rustling yellow leaves, and lay still.