Three Stories/On Condition: or Pensioned Off/Chapter 1

by Vítězslav Hálek

 

CHAPTER I.

 

T three o’clock in the afternoon, across the village green of Frishets went the sexton; he had in his hand a large key and directed his steps to the chapel.

Any of the villagers who were standing by the window and saw the sexton, at first only said to themselves, “Where, I wonder, is old Vanek going?” Afterwards they called to their wives, to the servants, or to any one who happened to be near at hand, “Look! look! Vanek is going to the chapel! Can there be a fire anywhere, or can any one be dead?”

“And where can there be a fire, and who can have died?” was the answer to these questions; but to every one it was apparent that one or other of these events must now have taken place.

After this those who stood by the windows ran out in front of the gate, and cast a curious glance after Vanek to see whether he was not going into the chapel. At this moment his key rattled in the door, the door opened, and Vanek vanished within the chapel.

“What, I wonder, can Vanek want in the chapel?” thereupon enquired the neighbours one of another, on the village green; each took a few steps toward the middle of the green, and then replied to one another that no one could tell, because there was no fire in sight, and no one in the village had been seriously ill.

At that instant the funeral bell rang out. “The Lord God grant him heaven,” said the neighbours’ wives, crossed themselves and began to pray.

The men removed their pipes from their mouths, lifted their caps and crossed themselves from brow to breast. Everyone was like a statue, only that his lips moved somewhat; in the village nothing stirred, the funeral bell swung to and fro and spoke to all, and yet no one knew for whom it was ringing.

All at once the funeral bell was silent and the neighbours and neighbours’ wives, just as they had at first trailed off from the windows on to the village green, so now they trailed over the village green toward the chapel, each one only saying, “The Lord God be with us! Who is it, I wonder?” Their impatience increased because old Vanek still lingered long in the chapel, doubtless, in order to tie again to the bell the rope, which owing to its rottenness so frequently snapped asunder.

And when Vanek issued from the chapel, and his huge rusty key again scraped in the door a cry arose as if from a single mouth, “Who is it for, prythee, who is it for?”

“The Lord God grant him heaven—old Loyka,” answered the sexton, and drew the key out of the door. “Oh Lord! Lord! and is it really he?” repeated the neighbours in great astonishment.

At this moment approached the spot, with a basket in his hand, Vena, who acted as messenger in the parish, dwelt at Loyka’s house, and moreover had the reputation of being a rascally impudent fellow. He also enquired, “Who is that for?”

“For your good old master, the pensioner,” answered the neighbours, sympathetically.

“For our—ho! ho! for our master, the pensioner—ho! ho!” sneered Vena, and burst out laughing. Although all held him for a fool, still it outraged their feelings when he laughed at such an occurrence.

“This is no laughing matter, Vena,” said they, reproachfully.

But something seemed to have tickled Vena’s fancy. “How, pray, isn’t it laughing matter when it is? Sure enough, he sent me into the town early this morning, look you, with a basket, look you here; that I might bring punch and rosolek, look you here; they keep it at the brewers. He set me on the road as far as the gate, put some small change into my hands and said, ‘buy there something for your own maw also, my Vena, that my flasks may not suffer by the way!’ and I am just coming from the town, I am bringing him punch and rosolek, look at it! And then he goes and dies, you say! Who is to drink it, pray? And then you say this is no laughing matter.” And again he laughed, until little by little his laughter infected the bystanders listening to it, who at last were fairly puzzled to know what it all meant, and turned inquiringly to the sexton.

The sexton, considering that Vena had dared to turn his official reputation into ridicule, strode up to the culprit as though he meant to take him by the collar. It was evident from the expression of his own eyes that he would most willingly have pulled. Vena’s ears or his hair. When he stood about half a pace distant from the other, so that his nose touched Vena’s nose, and his two eyes glared into Vena’s two eyes, he exclaimed pretty sharply, “This is no time for drinking, I tell you. He for whom I have once tolled the bell is dead and done for, and when I toll the bell for thee thou wilt be dead and done for.”

This speech and the manner in which it was spoken, not only convinced the neighbours, but it convinced Vena himself. He stopped, almost let fall his basket on the ground, and burst into tears. So that again in a little time he infected all the neighbours’ wives at all events with sorrow; until they were fain to wipe their eyes, and the neighbours said to one another, “’Tis a poor fool, but he hath a good heart!”

After a few moments, Vena lifted the basket, took out of it a flask of rosolek and gulping down his sorrow, said to the neighbours and neighbours’ wives, “What’s to be done with the rosolek now that he is dead, now that he is nothing at all? Ah, neigbours! Help and drink it to his health!” He himself took the first pull and then offered it to the bystanders.

“What are you to do with him when he is a fool,” said they again to one another, half laughing, and in the meantime began to call upon the sexton to explain how it came to pass that old Loyka had died so unexpectedly.

“He dropped off! He dropped off!” said the sexton. “It came upon him just like a yawn—like a hiccough.”

“The Lord God be with us!” cried some of the neighbours’ wives, for it appeared to them that the sexton spoke as learnedly as a doctor.

“Frank, his younger grandson, was with him,” continued the sexton, “you know they loved each other truly and dearly. ‘Franky,’ he said, ‘when I die my watch will be thine. Besides this, what is in yonder drawers and chests is also thine, it is that same silver which I have collected for thee.’ Frank said, ‘oh! grandfather, who, pray, would talk about death, and you so hale and hearty,’ and he wept. ‘Do you mean it,’ said old Loyka, ‘but I am old, within a little of a hundred years’”

“A hundred years!” reiterated the neighbours, “that is a great age.”

The sexton proceeded, “Ah! Frank,” says Loyka again, after a pause, “I feel constantly as though I had a clod of earth upon me. Boy! clear off this clod of earth!” “You have not, grandfather,” said Frank to this, and again wept. “You think not? Well, then lead me out on to the balcony,” and although in the morning he still walked like a stag, and was as fresh as a fish, now he leant upon Frank as though he could scarcely take a step forward.

Frank collected his strength—you know he is thirteen years of age—led him out on to the balcony, and Loyka looked all over the court-yard and as though he bid farewell to everything, and after he had cast his eyes in this manner upon one thing after another—buildings, courtyard, granaries, implements, he said, “Well-a-day, what is the use of crying about it!” Then he made a sign to Frank to lead him back into the living room. And when Frank had led him almost into the middle of the floor, Loyka hung yet heavier upon him, and said, “Come off! come off!” just as if he wanted to tear something off with his hand, and at that moment he fell down dead on the ground beside his grandchild.

“He dropped off! he dropped off!” reiterated the neighbours, and in their eyes trembled a tear of compassion, and at the same time a sort of astonishment and excitement at the thought that he had died so suddenly.

Hereupon all that stream of neighbours and neighbours’ wives just as they were by the chapel gate, trailed off towards Loyka’s farmstead at the other end of the village.

“At such an age people do not die, they drop off to sleep,” said one of the neighbours, and at once cited a case where something similar had occurred; there was, also, someone somewhere almost a hundred years of age, and he had died at dinner. Then again, others knew that at such an age people knew the hour of their death before-hand, and confirmed the fact by instances. These instances, however, did not suit well old Loyka’s case, because he had sent, while it was yet early morning, into the town for punch and rosolek.

And now before his farmstead they began to recount to one another his life’s history.

“It is something to say, such a great age” observed one—it was the Mayor of Frishets—“and yet last summer at harvest, he cut his own pensioner’s share of the crop, and it was thus wise: he cut along the line of reapers a portion equal to his own height, when he had cut so much, he said, “What availeth it, I cannot ply my sickle nowadays?” and he laid him down at full length in the space which he had cut.

The neighbours smiled slightly, and said, “Ah! well-a-day! How could he ply his sickle at all at such an age, I wonder? A hundred years!”

“One time while he lay thus,” proceeded the Mayor, once more, “I go close by him with my sickle, and I say, “Oh! grandfather help us in God’s name.” Loyka perceived that I was smiling and said, “Lazy body! lie no longer, up! up! and work thou also!” Then he rose and set himself to cut the corn, I meanwhile sat beside him near the boundary stone, and waited till he had once more finished cutting his own small portion. When he had finished it, he again lay down.

“And why could not his son, the peasant proprietor, cut it for him?” enquired some, though, indeed, they knew why this was not done, because they had already asked the same question several times at least, both in the present and the past.

“He could and he could not,” answered the Mayor again, “of course you understand-he was a pensioner on the son’s bounty. ’Tis seldom a son gives the father anything who is once pensioned off.”

As soon as this sentence was pronounced it was again evident that Vena was present. He stood by the farmstead, considering what to do with the rosolek, now that no one was willing to drink it. But as soon as he heard about the son and the pensioner on his bounty, he seemed all at once to be beside himself. “A murrain upon you every morning, ye peasant proprietors, who do not know what to do with your father when he is pensioned off. Only let me have power in my hands for half a day, I would drive you round the circle, I can tell you! Every one of you should be pensioned off at once for two years at least. A son cannot have a korets of land reaped for his father, because the father is pensioned off; blast all such sons, say I.”

“’Tis a poor fool, and yet he hath right on his side,” said some of the neighbours, “but he is touched here.” Others again said, “How, then, dare you say this, Vena, are you not a dependent on Loyka’s farm?” To this Vena replied very indignantly, “If I am on Loyka’s farm, I work for myself, I have no need of any one to work for me. Also I speak for myself, I have no need that anyone should speak for me.”

The neighbours only said to this: “He knows how to give cut for cut, ’twere better let him be.”

Here the Mayor again interposed: “Well! well! old people are sometimes rather laughable; in their time everything was quite different, you know. While Loyka lay on the rye which he had cut, he said: “Now-a-days, my good gossip, there are not such winters as there used to be. In my young day, the sparrows fell from the eaves and partridges and hares were frozen like clods of earth. More than once we thought it was the cat scrattling at the door, and lo! it was a hare. Did you ever hear the like of that? On this I say to him, “Oh! grandfather, one summer you had your well froze hard.” At this he sat upright in astonishment just where he had been lying, and said, “Lord ha’ mercy! the well hard froze in summer time! No; I cannot remember it ever to have been hard froze in summer time in my young day. The Lord God be with us!”

At this all the neighbours laughed simple-heartedly, and each one confirmed by some instance the statement that old people like to discriminate between their times and ours. And now the Mayor beckoned to the bystanders that they should step quite close to him. And then he said not very loud “On this, I said to old Loyka, “Oh! grandfather, I am surprised to find that you do not know that you had your well hard froze in summer time.” “My dear good little gossip,” says he, “for many a long year now I have not ventured to draw water from my son’s well; his peasant wife does not allow it.” At these words a thrill of consternation ran through the group of listeners.

Vena, it is true, had not wound himself into the selecter circle, but, none the less, he exclaimed as though he had heard all that was said “Not allow him to draw water! The frog retires that the dog may lap, and a son shuts his well against his own father.”

“You see he knows how to give names to things, and yet ’tis but a poor fool,” said the neighbours, and they thought wonderingly about the peasant proprietor, Loyka, although they had already heard about this affair of the well, and in fact from Vena himself.

“While I sat that day by the boundary stone,” the Mayor began again, “I enquired of Loyka “Oh! grandfather you can call to mind many a Kaiser this day, I take it.” “I can call to mind Kaisers and gentry,” replied Loyka. “I call to mind the time when Kaiser Joseph ploughed, and then I call to mind the time when all the gentry did it after him, only that the Kaiser ploughed with horses and the gentry with us.”

Here the neighbours again laughed, and said “What of that! he knew how to muster his parts of speech, and to give a slap in the face to high and low, only that he preferred to give it to the high and mighty.”

“I call to mind yet more,” said Vena, insinuating himself into the conversation. “I call to mind how that we plough one with another, and how that each hospodar laments that he cannot plough the field with his own father who is pensioned off. Oh! ye sons, what wouldn’t you give to have your wretched ‘tatas’ tugging at the plough.”

This remark appeared extremely personal, and they began to gesticulate against Vena; but some recognised that what he had said was at least true as regarded the Loykas.

Here one man said “Only what surprises me is that old Loyka was so contented when he fared so ill as a pensioner.”

“Ah! well! well!” said the Mayor, in elucidation of the mystery. “It is easy to be content when one has the wherewithal. He had good reason to be content. He had money enough for himself alone, about which he was wont to say “While that exists, I need never beg anything of anyone.” And well that he had it, and not well that he had it. Well, because his son, the hospodar, frequently kept back his pensioner’s share of the crop, and the old man might have been reduced to real distress if he had been kept waiting for it; not well, because on the other hand old Loyka, when the law bore him out, forced his son to pay every quarter of grain due. From this money sprang their differences. And then all that he could spare was laid by, and now Loyka’s Frank gets it all.”

“That boy will cut a figure in the world,” said some one. “He quite hung on his grandfather, and was at his house all day and all night long, until even his mother was angry with him for it. I maintain that he loved his grandfather more dearly than he loved either his father or his mother.”

“And where pray will you find children who do not love their grandfather and grandmother more dearly than they love their parents,” suggested others again. “You have at once his elder brother Joseph,” responded the former speaker.

“Faugh! he, indeed, why he never loved anyone in his life.” The opinion thus pronounced apparently expressed the general sentiment, for no one contradicted it.

At this moment a heart-rending wail resounded from the farmyard, and attracted the attention of all the neighbours present. They peered through the half opened gate and said to another, “’Tis Frank; we might have known it.”

Frank ran out on to the village green, his hair dishevelled, his face wet with tears, his eyes still filled with tears, and sobbed forth amid sighs and gulpings, “We have lost grandfather, our people drive me from him—oh! unhappy that I am!” And he cried until he choked.

During this outburst of sorrow the neighbours were silent. Only Vena took upon himself the task of continuing the conversation. “Ah! we know why they have driven thee out. They want to grab! They are grab, grabbing!” and he began to represent in dumb show how they were scraping everything into their pockets. But all at once, while thus engaged, Vena paused, clapped his hand to his forehead and said “Pantata, the mayor! how forgetful I have been! When I went to the town this morning old Loyka gave me this paper, and says he “When you come back from the town give it to my good gossip, the Mayor. And here am I forgetting all about the paper from sheer surprise!” He put his hand to his pocket, where he had an official document, drew out a roll of paper and handed it to the Mayor.

The Mayor broke the seal, ran his eyes over the contents, and said “This is Loyka’s last will. He leaves everything to you Frank, and everything is here mentioned down to the smallest details.”

Very likely Frank did not hear what the Mayor said. He sat by the gate on the ground, leant his hand on the abutment of the wall, his head on his hand, and wept without cessation.

But extreme surprise and astonishment had got the better of the rest of the bystanders, as was evident from the following conversation.

“Show it us, good gossip, the Mayor, show it us!”

“On my faith it is all true”

“And as soon as Vena returned from the town, he was to hand it over to you.”

“Well, and he has handed it over, to be sure.”

“And then, they say, that old Loyka did not know when he was to die.”

“To a hair he knew that he was to die to-day.”

“You see, I told you that old people knew to a hair when they are to die. Every one who is a hundred years old knows it. And he bade bring that rosolek here, that they might have it ready against the funeral.”

The circumstances of the case so cohered together, that they only the more confirmed the general astonishment.

Then the Mayor said “The defunct has appointed me trustee, to look through his personal property in the presence of witnesses, and to take everything under my protection. Come, then, neighbours; if two of you are willing to offer yourselves to be witnesses we can go to the house of the defunct at once, and look over his personal effects.”

“Prythee, why not? prythee, why not?” answered the neighbours, and hurried into the courtyard of the Loyka’s, but instead of two, all pressed forward, just as they were. Each man thought to himself “Who knows whether the Mayor will not select me to be a witness, and if not, what matters it? I shall be a witness all the same.”

Even the neighbours’ wives hurried after the neighbours into the courtyard. Only that here in the courtyard the male element detached itself from the female; the neighbours following the Mayor up the staircase into the pension house, the neighbours’ wives remaining below in the courtyard.

In the meantime, that is to say, while Frank ran out on to the village green and the neighbours betook themselves to the pension house, Loyka’s son and Loyka’s son’s wife laid out the corpse of the defunct on a bed, and the following conversation passed between them.

“Thirty years have we carried hither his pensioner’s share of the crop, and at last we ourselves are free to enjoy the pensioner’s portion,” said Loyka’s wife.

“We have wronged him grievously,” said Loyka, the hospodar, and clasped his hands.

“We him! he us much more! It is pretty late in the day to call black white now that he is dead, when it was allowed to be black during all his lifetime.”

“He hath his dismissal; who knows what awaits us.”

“A pleasing spectacle, truly to see you begin now to condemn what you approved for thirty years. We lay down a burden with him in the tomb; do not prevaricate, you know it as well as I do.”

“I would far sooner that I did not know it.”

“Oh! you men, you men! ye fear not the living, and as soon as their eyes are closed in death you grow timorous. Why should not I feel light-hearted to-day? I never feared him while he was alive. I tell him even now that he is dead—I feel the lighter for his loss. I should like to know the farm where they would not breathe free again when the pensioner on their bounty was taken from them, and such a one too.”

“He was my father.”

“And went to law with you about every measure of his pensioner’s share of the harvest. He never wanted for anything, he had already laid by so much for himself, and he kept back from us enough for ten people to have lived upon, and then he went to law with his son.”

“But I lived with him before in peace and happiness, even now I feel sorry for it all.”

“Don’t speak such words, peasant. Where do people ever treat their pensioners differently. What is given to the pensioner (vyminkar) is a lost thing to the farm, particularly if he has no need of anything, just as, in fact, your father had not.”

“You always deafen my conscience, wife.”

“Yes, when conscience tells thee to reckon five for nine. And when it dubs me an ambitious worldling—is that conscience?”

Such and similar remarks were made by this woman beside the corpse of the venerable centenarian, her father-in-law. The grave which generally closes the lips of slander had no such effect upon her.

Then her eyes fell on a small table which contained, as she was aware, a considerable amount of her late father-in-law’s property. She reconnoitred the small table, found a key in the drawer, pointed it out to her husband, and said well delighted—

“You see we have the key in our hands; it will be ours, ours, too, will be all these savings and not that nasty Frank’s. And you would have let the boy stay and take it all.”

Her husband understood this hint, and stepped close to the table in order to assist his wife in her investigation, and also to see with his own eyes how much his father’s savings might amount to.

They had just not opened the drawer when they heard steps—many steps—on the staircase. They listened, the little key remained in their hands just tapping against the table. At that moment entered the living room of the pension house—the Mayor, and after him almost all the neighbours.

Frank also had taken this opportunity to insinuate himself into his grandfather’s apartment, knelt again beside the corpse, and only called out “Oh! grandfather! oh! grandfather!”

The Mayor saluted, “Neighbour Loyka, may God console you. Look here; just read through what is written on this paper, and then give that key into my hands.”

At these words the peasant woman grew pale, and almost trembled. “You see here, neighbours, a key in my hand. I should like to know who dares to say that key is mine.”

“Certainly you dare not say so, my good gossip,” said the Mayor sleekly. “Just wait until your husband has read through what I have given him.”

When hospodar Loyka had read his father’s last will and testament to the end, he went to his wife, tore the key out of her hand, and said “Take it, my good gossip, the Mayor!”

“Well, then, you may see about the funeral as well, good gossip, the Mayor,” said the peasant woman, and burst into tears. They were tears of anger, of impotence, and of little mindedness.

“I will see about it, my good gossip, I will see about it,” said the Mayor; went to the corpse, took its measure, then took Frank by the hand, gave him this measure, and said “Go, little son of mine, to the gravedigger, that he may delve a grave for thy grandfather according to this measure.”

Frank took the measure, and sped like the foam, and the Mayor and his witnesses discharged their duties with respect to Loyka’s personalty.