Three Stories/On Condition: or Pensioned Off/Chapter 4

by Vítězslav Hálek

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

HE Loykas, man and wife, by the bedside of their defunct parent, perhaps, left the impression of being an avaricious couple. And cruelly should we wrong them if we held them up to scorn as avaricious. Avaricious they were only towards the pensioner on their bounty, and in this they had the common vice of perhaps a thousand of our families. To be pensioned off—that was to be the enemy of the property. That the pensioner and father were one and the same person, did not diminish the grave crime of being pensioned off by a tax upon the farm produce. The pensioner effaced the father, and the Loykas saw in their father only a pensioner on their bounty. And granted that the pensioner did them a good turn now and then—that was his duty as a father; but the Loykas did not dare ever to do him a good turn—he was pensioned off, and one’s pensioner must be thwarted every way.

And yet the Loykas were not in this matter by a single hair worse than many others; I say it with a sigh, but you find Loykas certainly in every second or third village.

It was not, then, avariciousness; it was the relation between the peasant and the father who had pensioned himself off. For in other respects the Loykas had all the good qualities of the Czech peasant. They were honest, affectionate, and hospitable. From their farmstead no needy person ever departed without aid. If a beggar had gone through all the village and departed empty-handed from every house, he went to the Loykas’ certain of being relieved. If strolling fiddlers or harpers came to the village they stopped at the Loykas’ as at their own home, there they got their victuals, passed several nights, and no one ever enquired when they meant to be off. Ay! the Loykas’ had two chambers specially set apart in the courtyard next to the coachhouse, and these chambers were open all the year round; any one who had no roof of his own might take up his quarters in them.

And they were occupied all the year round, strolling musicians roosted there like birds of passage.

Tinkers tarried there till they had mended all the Loykas’ pots and pans and those of the whole of Frishetts.

The kalounkar (tape pedlar) who walked from Domazlik, and only occasionally went home for goods, dwelt in the Loykas’ chambers as though he were at home with all his family. Sometimes he was there several Sundays, got his victuals from Loyka’s kitchen, and had not even to say thank you for them. So it had been all his life long. The kalounkar’s grandfather and great grandfathers had received hospitality there from the Loykas’—then how could they refuse him a home there. Surely they would call down the wrath of heaven upon themselves should they venture to dismiss him. The kalounkar (tape pedlar) was himself born there, his present young family was born there, the old Loykas were sponsors in baptism to the old kalounkar, the younger Loykas were sponsors to the wee kalounkars so now there was a family connection. The Loykas would have felt ill’ at ease if at certain particular seasons they had been without kalunkar and without tinkers. Perhaps if their humble friends had not been at their house, the Loykas’ would have sent to search the district for them. At pilgrimage times, at festival times, or about the season of the village gala—they must needs be at the Loykas’ several Sundays before the great event, and several Sundays after it. So that, indeed, there were but few occasions in the year when they were absent.

Besides the kalounkar who sold ribbons, the cloth pedlar walked the district, and he had even his stores at the Loykas’. On Monday he drew forth from his chest various samples, beside cloth, all kinds of kerchiefs and stuffs for dresses, then he waited several days until Sunday drew nigh, or until the vigil of the village gala, and then he shouldered his pack and went. If it rained or if the weather was threatening, he did not sally forth, and all that time was an extra hand at table in common with the other servants.

And many an occasion occurred, moreover, when Loyka’s hospitality was reckoned upon or missed. People came to have their sieves mended or their knives ground, and also people drove or walked round by the Loykas’ with their implements from the field.

Thither also came people from the village, and enquired “Is not the sieve maker here at your house? Is not the knife grinder here? We wanted sieves; we wanted to have our knives sharpened.” Without fail the sieve maker appeared regularly before harvest, and the knife grinder as regularly before the village festival.

In those chambers beside the coach house reigned life and jollity. There the conversation never flagged, and in the evening even Loyka, the peasant, and sometimes, finally, his wife would pay them a visit. Here all that occurred in the district of general interest was recapitulated. So that you might refer to the Loykas’ as to a well informed gazette. The kalounkar (tape pedlar) and the cloth pedlar tramped the whole district and had free access into every family—who then could know more than the cloth pedlar and the kalounkar?

And then when a fiddler and harper came, there was nothing for it but that he should play and sing over every song he knew of modern and of ancient date, every event consigned to verse, songs of comic character and sprightly pieces of music—then the evenings were gay indeed. Hither, too, from the village a few stray folk would come and form an audience. Hither also Frank led his young companion, with whom he esconsed himself somewhere in a corner and listened.

The narratives which specially pleased Frank and his parents, mostly dated from long winter evenings which include the whole circle of the marvellous, from fierce banditti to black dogs and white women, so that the young people were half dazed with fright if they had to find their way home across the courtyard or across the village green.

Such was the hospitality of the Loykas’ that they became proverbial. And these same Loykas treated their own father who was pensioned off upon a reserved share of the field produce, so badly that he did not even dare to draw water from their well!

In these chambers was also a constant guest—Vena, the general messenger, the half crazed man. If the Loykas had told him that they did not wish to have him any longer about the place, he would not have believed that they spoke in earnest, so thoroughly was he domesticated at their house.

Those chambers by the coach-house would no longer have been themselves if Vena had not been there. With him every one who entered them must sharpen his wit, and from him every one must submit to receive some rebuff either spoken in jest or earnest. With his so-called folly Vena provoked much merriment, and by what he said in earnest he raised the merriment a degree higher; it is often the fate of truth that we receive it with laughter.

And thus so many mouths were fed on and off the estate that if Loyka, the peasant proprietor, had shewn all these guests the door, he might have given three shares of the produce as a pension to his father and still have had enough for himself. But, of course, such an idea had never even occurred to anyone; thus it had ever been on Loyka’s farm so long as he could remember; it had been thus all through the life-time of his grandfather and even earlier. And yet we have heard that Loyka, the peasant, went to law about every quarter of wheat with his own father. What congruity was there in all this?

All whom we have mentioned the tinkers, the family of the kalounkar, the cloth pedlar, the sieve maker, the knife grinder, the fiddlers and the harpers assembled at the Loykas’ when Frank’s grandfather died, and they were there when Frank led Staza to the farmstead. They assembled at his grandfather’s death as if they had been summoned.

The fiddlers and harpers considered it their duty to present themselves to see whether their services would be required. It was the custom in our districts to go by easy stages from the burial to music, from music to lively music, from lively music to a downright banquet, and from a banquet to a debauch. Just as if at the funeral they had been sad against their will, and required a lively banquet quickly to counterpoise their weight of woe. They took good care to keep sorrow at arm’s length, and must needs have something to divert them from it. Or perhaps genuine sorrow is so rare and portentous a thing that it is necessary to give it a fillup with a flourish of light music whensoever it reveals itself. Or perhaps true sorrow is a superfluous thing, if we needs must lay our dead in the grave with sighs and tears through which all the time we catch the sound of instruments which are tuning for a dance. Or perhaps our sorrow is but as a game of play from which we shake ourselves free in a moment, and which with a dance is ended. But at any rate such is the fact: after a funeral there must be music, and music of a light and cheerful sort.

So then the musicians came confident of employment, and the Loykas conscientiously and sedulously completed all their preparations.

Before the funeral procession issued forth from the door, Loyka’s wife had already arranged her kitchen; fat beasts slaughtered the day before were already in chops and quarters on the trunchions or were frying on the hobs. Then Loyka’s wife followed the corpse, in order to cry her prescribed modicum of tears, to cry a good bottleful, and it was all just as necessary and just as much belonged to her sphere as the sauces and the sauer kraut.

After the funeral, then, Loyka’s house wore all the appearance of a festival. The guests who were staying in the house, and those who were invited for the day sat down to a richly furnished table, which in the form of a horse shoe occupied the whole of the principal apartment; the musicians seated themselves in the hall by the pantry, and after a few moments everything was as merry as at a wedding.

It was a custom in the Loykas’ family for the males to marry late in life. Thus our defunct centenarian had not married until well nigh his fortieth year: Loyka, the peasant proprietor, not until after his thirtieth year, consequently he was now sixty and his wife fifty. Joseph, his eldest son, was now about four and twenty—we know the age of Frank. Loyka, the peasant, in contradistinction to the vejminkar (pensioner) was called young Loyka. But after the death of the hundred-year-old-grandfather, Loyka, the peasant, became all at once old Loyka, and his son Joseph was promoted to the dignity of young Loyka.

Joseph seemed fully alive to the importance of the day. He did not seat himself at table, but with watchful eyes superintended and arranged the dishes and liquors as they issued from the kitchen and the cellar, and in the dining room he attended to the wants of all.

This did not escape the observation of those present, and as soon as conversation became general some of the neighbours turned to Loyka, and remarked “Your son makes an excellent hospodar.”

“Ay, ay, and doubtless his kind father will not leave him long to wait—and why should you grudge yourself repose when you have so stout and goodly a successor.”

Loyka, the peasant proprietor, smiled selfconsciously to himself at these words, as though he meant to say by that smile:—“Just wait a little, and you will soon hear what I have determined in my mind.”

Then when Joseph came into the apartment looking like a bouquet, and threw a glance around him like a recognised commander, the neighbours again said—

“So Joseph, my lad, you have but to look out for a sweetheart somewhere, your father yonder says he should like to have a daughter in his house, the sooner the better, and his wife agrees with him.”

“You are rather late with your counsels,” suggested another, “he hath pretty well selected already.” And at this the speaker winked at Barushka, who sat near the middle of the table and who, when these words were uttered, bowed her head over her plate that people might not see her face.

“Prythee, who’ll have me,” enquired Joseph airily, and at these words Barushka again raised her head from her plate; Joseph went out of the room.

After this some of the neighbours said almost in a breath:—“Oh! Barushka, pray, what makes you so hot?”

“I am not hot,” said Barushka, and looked about her with determination into which she had partially nudged herself in order that, if possible, she might still conceal what had now no further need of concealment.

After this a burst of music was heard from the hall, and in the dining room all laughed at what they had said, and continued to say more like it.

When the music was over in the hall, Loyka, the peasant proprietor, rose and posted himself with some solemnity by the table. He wished to address the assemblage. Just before he spoke he looked at his wife, and when she nodded assent, he cleared his throat and thus began:—

“Dear neighbours and neighbours’ wives! As to us old folk,” and here he pointed to himself, his wife, and his neighbour Kmoch, the father of Barushka, “we have quite come to an agreement. And so if Barushka has nothing to say against it, we will settle the day of the wedding, and you are all invited to it.”

Here Loyka lapsed into silence: he looked all over the assemblage to see what sort of effect his words had produced. They had produced an effect.

“I could have told you so just this minute.”

“Yes, God grant them happiness, they will make a nice couple.”

“Barushka is at ease now, she is not hot any longer.”

“And where is Joseph?”

“Oh! not far off, I warrant. Perhaps he is listening somewhere.”

One of the neighbours rose in order that he might fetch Joseph; the others made a place beside Barushka, and when Joseph entered the apartment, he was greeted with a hearty volley of congratulations, and the neighbours who led him in pointed to the vacant place beside Barushka, and said “There, that is your place.”

“We were surprised,” said the neighbours’ wives. “Hitherto we never had the least suspicion,” but they had had a pretty shrewd suspicion all the same, because they had already several times talked the whole matter over at home, on the way to and from chapel, on the road to and from market, on the village green, and behind the barn.

Joseph seated himself beside Barushka, and when silence again prevailed, he said “Oh! Barushka, prythee why not? Since our parents wish us to wed why should we not be man and wife,” and after this he imprinted a smacking kiss on her lips, so audible indeed was it that every one yielded to an equally audible fit of laughter.

“And people say there was no understanding between them.”

“The deuce! they understood one another perfectly well.” “Such a smacking kiss is not given for the first time.”

Glasses were now raised and were emptied to the health of the young couple.

When after this they again sat down, Loyka, the peasant, still remained standing; not having yet said everything he wished to say, he prepared himself for a further continuation of his speech in a solemn manner. As if at a secret signal a flourish of music resounded from the inner hall, and then there was complete silence throughout the apartment.

And Loyka, the peasant proprietor, began again. “And, verily, on the following terms: The farmstead will be adjudged to you young people, and I with my wife, look you here, will still be hospodar for six years in it. But again, if that is to say we grow tired of managing the estate as hospodari, we shall leave you the entire management, and you will give us for the term of those six years a quarter of all the produce of the farm. Only after the six years, shall we reserve to ourselves the pensioner’s (vejminkar’s) portion, but there is time enough to think about that.”

Now a pause occurred, and Loyka waited for a reply. But no reply came: Joseph did not stir, Barushka looked at her father, then at Joseph, and the rest of the company looked at one another. Loyka again took up the thread of his discourse. “If you are not contented with the conditions I have proposed, good. I and my wife, look you here, have the right to manage the estate for six more years, and only when those years are over need we discuss the question of your marriage. If, then, we are willing to grant the farm and house to you young people now at once, reserving to ourselves the management for the six years, we do this for the sake of you young people, because we know how you love one another, and that you are already all in all to one another.”

Now Joseph rose to reply, and the answer was at the tip of his tongue. “What you settle, dear parent, must be held binding. How, then, could we venture to prescribe to you how long you are to be hospodar. Be hospodar as long as you like. Grant that the farm be adjudged to us, permit us to espouse one another, and all the rest will arrange itself in the fear of God.”

Then Barushka rose, went to Loyka’s wife, embraced her round the neck, kissed her hand, and said “Pani mama, if you should wish to manage the household until the day of your death, I will bear you on my arm, and will love you above everything. Only let me be Joseph’s wife and your daughter. I desire nothing more.”

These words tripped quite glibly from Barushka’s tongue, and no doubt came from her heart, and yet she spoke them with a kind of forced energy as though she was anxious that they should not miss their mark. Loyka’s aged wife pressed her to her own bosom and embraced her, Loyka wiped away his tears, and at the same instant the neighbours wiped both their eyes and noses, because in all public assemblages tears take this direct route to the ground.

“Oh! what a daughter that is,” said the neighbours’ wives to her father Kmoch, “how well she expresses herself, too; you must love her, indeed, you must. And how proud you must be to have such a daughter.”

“How could I fail to feel delight in her,” said Kmoch. “She takes after me: that is just as I should have spoken.”

Then Barushka also stepped up to Loyka, kissed his hand, and repeated in somewhat different words all that she had said a moment before to her future mother-in-law. Here again during these reciprocal endearments you might hear tears falling, only that this time they were still more audible, because just then a braying of instruments resounded from the inner hall whereby the solemnity of the moment gained a sort of official confirmation.

“Dear children,” said Loyka, “so long as we manage the estate, we shall also dwell here in the principal house, and you will be banished for the time to the pensioner’s (vejminkar’s) house, where dwelt your grandfather. When we cease to manage the estate we shall ourselves go into the pensioner’s house, and you will shift hither into the principal building.”

Barushka said “Dear parent, say no more about it at present; what you settle, that same must be; and were you to settle that we should take up our abode for the six years even in the two chambers where lodge your humbler guests, I would still bear you on my arms.”

At these Barushkine periods Joseph only smiled and nodded as if to testify that he agreed with every thing that Barushka had said.

There are people who give way to genuine weeping as soon as they hear anything repeated in a solemn manner, even though the words repeated be wholly destitute of meaning to them. We hear parents weep to whom their children repeat the polite platitudes their instructor has taught them, and which are quite unintelligible both to the parents and to the children. We hear strangers and members of a family weep at a wedding as soon as a withered old parson begins to patter from a book divers reflections and pious admonitions; we hear strangers, too, weep at a funeral as soon as the priest begins to recite Latin words which now-a-days certainly no one comprehends. And so how could all these good folk who were present have failed now to give way to audible weeping at the announcement of Loyka so solemnly pronounced, sanctioned by strains of music, further affirmed by the protestations of Barushka, reiterated with energy intelligently and eloquently expressed.

So infectious was the sobbing and gulping which occurred in the apartment, that there was not a single eye which remained undimmed with tears. Both Loyka and Loyka’s wife wept, only two people remained proof against this infection, and these were Joseph and Barushka herself.

When what we have here described was all over Loyka, the peasant proprietor, sat himself down by himself, and then looked greatly exhausted. Just as though he had toiled much and must rest himself awhile. He held the table with both his hands: his head sunk on his breast: his eyes stared vacantly at his hands his breast heaved stertorously. In this posture he remained for a considerable space of time without change and, save his stertorous breathing, was like a statue.

From this strange reverie he was rudely disturbed by Joseph, who bade clear away the table, because the guests wished to have a dance. And so they were to disengage the table from Loyka’s hands as best they might, and after this Loyka rose from his seat and roused himself from these his thoughts.

In the inner hall resounded from harps and violins the merry music of the dance, and in a brief space of time, all who had any pretensions to youthfulness were spinning in the waltz. Even old Loyka took a turn, because Barushka came especially to him and requested the honour of a dance. And then all the rest of the company stepped out from the circle and allowed Loyka and Barushka to perform a solo, clapped with their hands, snapped their fingers, and laughed when they saw how frisky and active old Loyka was, and how he in no respect fell short of any of the young men there present.

And here old Loyka himself whistled like a young man, as if he were celebrating his own wedding, until all who were present were struck with astonishment, who although they laughed with pleasure at the sight of his youthfulness, still thought in their heart of hearts that it was not quite in keeping with Loyka’s age and character.

After a while the rest of the company were again in the circle, this time Joseph also who had received Barushka from the hands of his father, and now all tootled and whistled, young and old.

Who would have said, if he had entered at this moment, that these people were at a funeral in the forenoon, and were now continuing the funeral solemnities?

And yet there were two small souls who kept it still in mind—Frank and Staza, who from the inner hall among the musicians, looked at all that was passing in the dining room.

And so, during an interval, while there was a pause in the dance and only the sound of whistling was to be heard in the dining room, a kind of consultation here took place between Frank and the musicians, and before any one expected what was toward, Frank and Staza struck up with the hymn “Odpocinte vpokji verne dusicky.” (Rest in peace ye faithful spirits).

The musicians, fiddlers and harpers, accompanied them. Staza’s little voice penetrated like silver, Frank’s voice faithfully seconded hers, and then the music accompanied it all—it was as though tears were falling.

If you are well versed in tales of magic you will recollect how all at once everything in a castle was turned to stone. And thus at this song everything was turned to stone in the dining room. Here some one stretched out his hand to his neighbour and the hand remained stretched out, here another had raised his hand to tootle with it and the hand remained raised above his head, and the tootling died away in his throat. Here another wanted to turn to his neighbour, he had not quite turned towards him, neither was he altogether turned away from him. And when Joseph wanted to drink with Barushka he proffered her his glass indeed, but the glass remained in his hand, and the polite speech remained unspoken.

Into the midst of all that whistling, tootling, and babbling of tongues a knife had worked its way, and smitten all with a sudden blow. Two childish little voices had taken upon themselves to hew down an ogre, and the ogre shivered and reeled to the ground. A morsel of genuine feeling claimed a hearing, and what was untrue and unnatural tumbled to pieces like a house of cards.

The grandfather still had the last word to-day. He spoke by the mouths of those children who constrained even the harpers and fiddlers to their cause, and all that gay company in the dining room again knew that it was the day of his funeral. Not gladly certainly, but no one could say, I do not know it.