Three Stories/On Condition: or Pensioned Off/Chapter 5

by Vítězslav Hálek

 

CHAPTER V.

FTER a brief space of time the Loykas celebrated a wedding. The festivities passed off at Kmoch’s house—at the father of the bride’s; after the feasting Joseph conducted his wife to his homestead. And here the harpers and fiddlers who had still remained there since the day of the grandfather’s funeral, played before the hall doors as soon as the bride had entered the house, thus welcoming her with a burst of triumphant music. How could they do otherwise?

But they soon found out their mistake. “Just clear off the threshold, will you?” said the young mistress with such precision, that he whom it touched did not venture to reply.

Still, all the same, one of the musicians ventured to plead an excuse. “But our good old master ordered us to play here,” said he in exculpation of himself and his companions.

“You lie!” said Barushka. “Your good old master never orders anything which I do not like. Just be gone from here in double quick time.”

The musicians did not finish their performance, nor did they finish what they had further wished to say; old Loyka stood as though a stream of hot water was running down his back, and Loyka’s aged wife, had it not been the very day of the wedding would, perhaps, have stoutly seconded her lord and master.

The musicians did not finish their performance, and trailed like draggled chickens across the courtyard toward the coach-house, and entered their two chambers.

“And that is a pretty welcome,” said they to one another.

“Truly, she begins wondrous well,” they murmured.

“This is something new on the estate,” they added.

Loyka’s aged wife still could not bring herself to believe that the new bride wished so ruthlessly to abolish on the very threshold of her new life what had been for so long a series of years a speciality of the family. “When you danced here at your grandfather’s funeral I did not think, Barushka, that you were an enemy to music,” said she with a certain asperity.

“I cannot stand things where they are out of place,” replied Barushka with yet greater asperity. Music is in its place at an alehouse, not at such a farm as this. I could not endure to live under the same roof with a pack of strolling scamps, with whom one loses caste, because that class of menials deems itself our equal. And a dubious light is thrown on the management of an estate which fosters vagabonds.

Here Loyka’s aged wife recognised to her surprise that a crisis had come, (lit: the sickle had come to the grindstone) and that she must not easily yield.

“We hand over the estate to you in excellent order, and it would be well if there were never any worse things to complain of,” said she.

“Still, for my part, I could not bear to live in a building where everybody thought that he had the right of entrance, just as though it was an alehouse. Joseph will see to it that this rabble of vagabonds does not take up its quarters here a night longer,” added the young bride with the same asperity.

“Joseph?” said Loyka’s aged wife, and it was half an interrogation and half an asservation that Joseph would do no such thing. She pronounced it with a taunting smile as if she had said to Barushka “You are quite mistaken in Joseph, I assure you.”

“Yes, Joseph,” said Barushka.

“Joseph see to it that the musicians be warned off the farm who have been here all their lives,” enquired the elder peasant woman in the same manner.

“What has been need not be always. There are things which after a time go out of fashion.”

On this Joseph rose, and said “Pray, why should I not tell them? I will go and tell them at once.”

Barushka looked at her mother-in-law as though she would say “Now, what have you got to say”—and she smiled tauntingly.

“And this is the girl who was willing to take me on her arms,” thought the peasant woman to herself, and all at once she seemed to stand on the edge of an abyss.

And Joseph exactly, as though he and Barushka had just finished a game of cards, quitted the apartment and betook himself to the musicians.

“Will you be so good as to clear off at once from here,” said he. “My wife does not wish to have people hanging about the place, and I do not wish it either.”

Here the musicians felt as if they had received a severe shock. “Well, the Lord God reward you,” said they, collecting their instruments in order that they might clear out, and they looked at Joseph as though they did not yet know whether it was jest or earnest. But it was earnest, for when they had gone out across the threshold he did not call them back nor when they crossed the courtyard, only the dogs whined a sad farewell to their old friends who went out by the gate on to the village green.

Joseph still remained by the gate until the musicians were fairly out of sight. And here the family of the kalounkar (tape pedlar), the cloth pedlar, and all who were still present, looked at him in a kind of uncertainty to see whether it affected them also.

But Joseph did not leave them long in suspense. He leered at their things, he leered at them, and said “You must take it all away by this evening.”

And here the cloth pedlar and the kalounkar looked at Joseph as though they would have said “Art thou that Joseph who sat here beside us, and listened to our story-telling.”

And out loud the kalounkar said “I must entreat you, dear Mister Joseph, to ask our good old master and mistress to come hither that we may thank them for all their kindness. We do not venture to present ourselves in their apartments, and yet how can we go away without bidding them adieu?”

“There is no need, I assure you, I will give them any message you may choose to leave.”

Here the old kalounkar said, almost crying, “Then tell them that the old kalounkar salutes them a hundred times, and that he thanks them for this roof which they have condescended to lend him for so many years, and that he never supposed that he would have to leave on the very day when he thought that a feast would be toward.’.

“I will tell him, I will not forget,” said Joseph, cutting short further explanations, turned and went into the principal apartment.

And thus in a brief space of time were banished from the estate after the musicians, the kalounkar, the cloth pedlar, and the rest. At a moment which is the sweetest in human life, at a moment which every family scores in letters of gold on the page of its domestic history—at that moment in sorrow left this house several people who by right of dear custom considered that it was in part their home.

“Pray, where are the pedlar and the kalounkar being banished,” said old Loyka, seeing from the window how they were trailing across the courtyard with their wares.

“I have purged the chambers of them also,” said Joseph in elucidation. They were no better than the musicians, they had no right to hang about the place. If we young people have to take up our abode in the pensioner’s house we shall want these chambers for ourselves, and not for all sorts of underlings. It would be quite a sin if we were to tolerate them any longer.”

There cannot be a severer blow for an old man than to hear his past life and actions condemned in a single word; and this happened when Joseph declared Loyka’s previous system of hospitality to be a sin. And if there was anything praiseworthy at the Loykas’ it was, perhaps this, that their courtyard opened freely to shelter any who wished to enter it.

Here Loyka, as he sat, so he got up, burning with ill-repressed emotions, and said “How, pray, dare you act thus when these chambers are mine.’

“If you are so sorry for your poor lodgers, call them back again,” said Joseph with a mocking smile.”

“And so I will call them back! Let one of the servants go and call them back.”

“The servants will go when I send them, dear father,” said Joseph with the same mocking smile. “The estate is once for all adjudged to me, and I think that the servants belong to me also.”

“What is that!” shrieked old Loyka.

“Come, come, there is no need to explain what you know quite as well as I do; the servants belong to the estate, and the estate belongs to me.”

“How so? And can I not venture to dismiss a servant if I choose,” enquired old Loyka in just the same sharp tones as at first.

“You can, just as I can take him on again if I choose. If you send him away, perhaps I shall take him on again, if he suits me.”

“And how, pray, dare you act thus when I am to be hospodar here six years longer?” And for this question he mustered all his self-importance.

“On my estate?” enquired Joseph drily.

“On thy estate!” screamed old Loyka, and here already his voice quivered with the welling tears. “And so, perhaps, you will tell me after a while that I may drag myself off after yon musicians and kalounkari.”

“Prythee, father, reflect, I have never said any such thing, although I cannot conceive how it is that these harpers have managed to grow so dear to your heart.”

“May your tongue be turned to stone!” yelled old Loyka in wrath and anguish. At that moment he was scarcely to be recognised. He seated himself, and his tongue seemed turned to stone. He wished to speak and revolved in his mind this or that sentence, but all failed him, like a broken bough. His speech was thick as though he had been drinking, and as though he had to babble instead of speaking. Then he slouched, as we say, ‘a peasant’s ell’ upon the table, leant his chin upon his hand, opened wide his eyes, half laughed and half wept at the same time, and said several times to himself “So it has come to this! so it has come to this!”

This altercation was sufficient for the first time. Motes seemed to flicker before Loyka’s old eyes, and after a considerable pause, he said “Wife, lead me to bed.” He did not even trust himself to go alone.

And the young folks took up their abode in the dwelling which had been previously occupied by their grandfather, which was called on the farm “the pension house” (na vejminku: i.e. on condition), and to which we will give the same name; the old people dwelt in the house they had hitherto occupied, which was called the farm house (na statku), and which we also will so name.

In the farm house the Loykas were to be hospodars for six years.

When harvest time drew near the farm-stead filled with harvesters and harvest women. It was gay in the courtyard below. Scythes and sickles clashed, rakes were being mended, everywhere there was a sound of hammering—just as if a clock was striking in the courtyard. Old Loyka, who had scarcely spoken five words since his son’s wedding day, grew young again at the season of harvest. He was so accustomed to those two chambers by the coach-house, he used always to find there some wayfarer with whom he gladly conversed, and since his son’s wedding day these chambers had been empty. And it oppressed him to have no one to converse with. But at harvest time the farmstead filled with people, moreover, harvest men and harvest women filled the two chambers, and so Loyka felt as though he had come to himself again. Now once more people went to and fro, the courtyard was full of voices and the noise of preparations—so old Loyka was once again contented. Often at early morning he might be seen pacing to and fro the courtyard, pleased with the flavour of his pipe, and with a settled smile upon his face.

During the few Sundays which had elapsed since his son’s wedding day several years seemed to have settled upon his head; to-day he felt as though in the flight of time those few years had been recalled. The harvesters and harvest women saluted him, smiled upon him, conversed with him, enquired of this and that, and old Loyka loved to converse. To-day he had been talking since early morning, he wished to compensate for the silence of several past weeks.

The harvesters were glad to go and seek employment at the Loykas’; here they halted first when they came to the village—Loyka might choose the stoutest of them all. Also to-day he made his selection. Every harvester called him “pantata,” and that pleased him; it was evident, he thought within himself, that they still accounted him somebody on the estate, and that they maintained the same behaviour to him as in times gone by.

In times gone by the harvesters were proud to boast of their respect and reverence for the Loykas. Where in all the neighbourhood was the harvest home held so merrily as at the Loykas’. The harvesters were proud of it, and used to pride themselves on account of it in comparison with other harvesters.

“Well, pantata, this summer we shall have a merry harvest,” said one harvester. “A new bride in the house—she will help it out.”

“Ay, ay, just so,” said old Loyka, and perhaps he did not exactly catch what the harvester had said, for the smile did not vanish from his face nor did he remove the pipe from his mouth.

“Since at harvest home we have to dance with the mistress of the house, this year we shall dance the summer out, having to tread a measure both with your good lady and the young gentleman’s also,” suggested another of the harvesters.

“Ay, ay, just so,” said Loyka, and went on smiling; for it flattered him to think that the harvester had not forgotten his old mistress in the dance. “But this summer we have no musicians here,” he added.

“And what of the musicians? They trail off like sparrows after grain,” suggested the former harvester again.

And again old Loyka felt flattered to think that the harvester was not aware of the mode in which the musicians had been banished from the farm. “Just so, just so,” continued old Loyka with a touch of self-satisfaction.

After this he gave his orders where and to what fields they were to go, and where they were to begin to reap. When he had delivered all his orders, lo! Joseph was at his side, and said “You will go to-day to cut beyond the meadow.” And it was totally different from what his father wished them to do.

“How, pray, should they go beyond the meadows. The corn beyond the meadows can stand two days longer, but where I am sending them it cannot stand a day longer,” objected his father.

“And when they have to go beyond the meadows,” said Joseph, as if he had not the least heard what his father had said.

Here the harvesters stood uncertain in which direction they had to quit the courtyard.

“Well, then, go beyond the meadow,” said Joseph’s father with forced humility, not wishing that they should observe how impotent his commands had already become in presence of his son.

And so the harvesters went away to work in accordance with the young hospodar’s orders. After this old Loyka said to the servants “You will stay at home and make straw bands.”

“There is time enough for making straw bands,” said Joseph. “Just go after the harvesters and help them in the field.”

Here again the servants did not know whether they had to stop in the courtyard or go off to the field. They looked from Joseph to old Loyka. And Joseph, perceiving their indecision, said “Why do you hesitate? He that does not go to the field, let him look out for his place.”

After this the servants departed.

“And who will make straw bands,” asked old Loyka.

“Seeing that there is no great hurry,” said Joseph, “I think that you alone might manage to make them.”

“Be it so, be it so”; said old Loyka with a laugh.

“And I have to make straw bands? I have to be like a day labourer?”

“Like a day labourer? Surely you know that we all buckle to at harvest time?” said Joseph.

“Just so. But how pray? Am not I then still hospodar. Do you know, my dear son, that I never did such menial offices?”

“If you are not willing to work, good. It is easy to see that you are but a half-hearted hospodar when you shirk in this manner.”

“It is the duty of the hospodar to act as overseer; others can do manual work,” explained old Loyka.

“As for being overseer, that am I,” said Joseph.

“And I am like the fifth wheel on a carriage,” exclaimed Loyka angrily. But Joseph, just as if no words had passed between them, had already departed and left his father with a swarm of thoughts, so that he seemed to have his head full of drones and wasps. After this the father looked to heaven, and called aloud in an explosion of bitterness “Lord God! grant me some inspiration that I may make this cruel son aware that I am his father.”

“Drop a little rat’s bane into his well,” murmured the voice of the irrepressible Vena. “Unless you do so, he will soon close it against you as you closed it against your father, and then you will never have another chance of poisoning it for him, pantata.

Loyka scrutinised Vena, and seemed half as though he had heard half as though he had not heard him. “Oh! Vena,” he said, “prythee tell me how gall diffuses itself through the body.” And he took him and looked into his eyes as though he expected from him a serious answer.

“Let me fool you only just once,” sneered Vena.

“Prythee, boy, fool on,” entreated Loyka in a voice of humiliation that was almost pitiable.

“And why, pray, should I mix myself up in the concern,” sneered Vena. “Of course your son will do the business for you. How, pray, could he fail to do it for you when you are, after all, but a pensioner on his bounty. You managed to fool your own father, why then should your son not manage to do the same by you? But what surprises me is—that in your son it begins so precious soon. You put the fool’s cap on your father later. But who can change the course of nature? Now-a-days youth develops faster. Joseph, methinks, will have done with you sooner than you had done with your defunct father.”

“Don’t you know anything more to tell me than that,” enquired old Loyka.

“I do know,” said Vena. “But there is nothing in all that. You to talk about happiness, indeed. You, verily! You will be hospodar six years longer, you will dwell in the farm house, you are still master there. Oh! oh! things will grow worse and worse until they crack, and until you are mast-headed on yonder balcony whence your father looked at the farm house, because he did not dare to cross the courtyard.”

As Vena said these words Barushka came out bearing a message “from Joseph, you know, papa dear,” to the effect that during harvest time the old people could take up their abode with her mother in the pension house, and that the young folk would shift into the farm house. “We have so much to do, and it is so tiring to run to the pension house and then back again to the farm,” she remarked. After this she marched off as though she had already gained her father-in-law’s consent to this arrangement.

“Look, look, yonder, pantata, the maids are already heaving you out of the nest,” said Vena. And forth from the farm house the maid servants were already carrying Loyka’s furniture.

“So! you are to be shelved instanter” said Vena. “See! see! I did think that they would have waited a little longer. You did bear with your father in the house a certain time. But youth develops faster now-a-days. See! see!”

Old Loyka turned his eyes to the entrance hall. “Dear Vena,” he said, and took him by the hand. “Come and help me, and let us make mince meat of it all.”

“That will be of small avail now; once you are fairly out of the house, it will be hard to get back again. You will have to go to law with your son. Before judgment is given in your case, the six years are out, and meantime you can be thankful for the pension house. But, of course, you know how long a law suit takes, for you were still at law with your father while he was being buried. The one thing you must pray for is that your son may have a son again, and that this son may one day pay his father out for your wrongs. But you understand all about it.”

“But come and help me!” he took Vena by the hand as though nothing would move him from his determination.

“Come along! come along! pantata,” said Vena, holding himself in readiness. “I will catch hold of your chests and cupboards lest they take flight, and you shall lamm into them.”

And old Loyka went into the entrance hall and began to turn everything upside down, then he took a chair in his hands and shouted into the inner rooms “I will break his head who takes anything of mine out of the house.”

At these words they ceased to carry his things out of the house. Perhaps the sight of old Loyka somewhat softened them, and perhaps they deemed it prudent to desist when old Loyka so passionately set himself in opposition.

Here Vena also took a chair, seated himself upon it, and invited Loyka to sit down on the one which he held in his hand, and said “Let us seat ourselves at your house, pantata.”

His master needed no second invitation, he seated himself on the chair which he held in his hands, and was once more silent.

“You see, pantata, you would not even have known that you could sit down in your own house if I had not told you so. When you do not know where to dwell come to me and I will tell you,” said Vena. After a pause, he added, as though well pleased with the thought to which he gave utterance, “Indeed I am glad that we can sit at your house.” “But do you know what? you would not the least dare to go with me into the inner apartments.”

“What is that you say?” and Loyka rose from his chair.

“That you dare not go with me into the inner room.”

“We’ll see about that,” answered Loyka with great vehemence. And he had already taken Vena by the hand and said “Come, Vena, with me into the farm house, thou art my guest there.”

And they entered the farm house.

“Look, mama, I am bringing you a visitor,” said Loyka to his wife, without noticing Barushka, who was present. “He is helping us to ballast the furniture which the sweet Barushka finds so much in her way, that she allowed it to float out of the house.”

Barushka paid not the slightest heed to her father-in-law, and let fly straight at Vena. “Clear out of the house, thou impudent rogue! It were indeed a disgrace, if fellows like thee should be admitted even into our best drawing room.”

Loyka laughed. “Meseems, Vena, she doth not appreciate thee. But seat thyself, boy, here by me. You shall see, I will not let them bundle thee out just as they are bundling out yonder packing cases. Just seat thyself, thou art at my house. The dear young folk have already made a clean sweep of a good many things both from the farm house and from the two chambers, but none shall dare to brush thee off, no one, you understand, no one.

At this Barushka, turning to her father-in-law, remarked “For my part I thought that we had enough to do with one fool in the house; but you, pantata, must e’en bring in another one.”

“So! I am a fool! possibly, young lady, possibly,” said old Loyka with a curse, took the chair on which he was sitting in his hands and would, perhaps, have hurried after Barushka and, perhaps, have struck her a heavy blow. But at that moment he stopped short, and said “No, just because we are at home and she is our guest, I do not dare to forget myself.”

For that time, at any rate, the old Loykas were left in peace in their farm house.