Three Stories/Under the Hollow Tree/Chapter 3

by Vítězslav Hálek

 

CHAPTER III.

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HAT day they tramped many a long mile, and passed many a village. As yet hunger had not importuned them, and they had tramped along easily enough, but when hunger began to hint its presence, they had to reflect how to rid themselves of that unwelcome guest. So far they had marched through villages only for the fun of the thing, and had not wished to post themselves by the door and explain by their music that they were in want of food. But when reality was more powerful than their weak thought, they were fain to discuss what decided step should now be taken. It was alreay afternoon when they reached a new village, and their feet began to ache. They sat themselves down near the village under some willow trees, and Venik said, “Now we must try our fortune, and now we must arrange what we are going to play and sing.” And they began to compose and arrange. At this very time a large group of children wended their way to the village school. Hearing young musicians, a youth and a girl, who might well have been going to school with them, they paused to listen; and as the musicians and their listeners were both equally juvenile, they quickly came to understand one another. The young public paid what it could, and Venik promised to accompany them with his music to school.

And he accompanied them. Krista paced beside him, and Venik played all he could think of to make them dance and laugh and whistle. After him trotted the youthful group of scholars, and a procession so gay debouched into the village that the like of it the villagers had never seen before. To school advanced so cheery a procession of children that even the school had never seen anything like it. In a moment school was deserted, and round Venik and Krista gathered an audience which was composed of all the children in the village. Then Krista began to sing, Venik accompanying her on his violin, and the school children were almost beside themselves. When it was rumoured among them that the musicians were orphans, gifts rained upon them from all sides. Kreutzers, all kinds of sweetmeats and sugarplums which the children had with them for school. Venik soon had his hand full of kreutzers, and eatables and dainties filled Krista’s apron.

This happy beginning filled them with hope and courage. As the children were now obliged to go in to school, they made a compact with Venik and Krista to meet them again as soon as school was over. And who would have thought it? these young rascals marched out of school to the sound of music, as proud as the gay fellows who swagger home from the alehouse on festival or gala days, to the accompaniment of fife and tabor.

Venik and Krista went thus from house to house, everywhere playing and singing some piece. Everywhere the school-children trooped after them, and they seemed to have brought back spring with them into the village, and surprising it was to see how many gifts they collected at the various homesteads.

Then they also played and sang pathetic songs. Krista sang “The orphaned child,” Venik accompanied the song on his violin, and when the village children again mentioned to their parents that the musicians themselves were orphans, tears started from every eye—young and old wept aloud, just as though someone had been dead—such were the laments they made. We have already seen how Venik played this piece at his father’s funeral; now to his playing was superadded Krista’s singing, and she in no wise lagged behind her companion. Those around who listened were not orphans; and yet no single heart was unimpressed. The children of the village felt as though they had lost a mother; the mothers felt as though they were already laid in the grave, and their children were covering them with pine needles.

The effect which the piece produced was almost terrible. The people knew the song, but never in all their lives had they heard it sound as it did then. They seemed to be hearing it for the first time; they seemed to hear in it tones completely new; no one had a suspicion that it contained a fund of pathos such as no one could resist. In the tones of our musician that song was heard in all its grandeur, aye, in majesty, and every heart was rent.

After that piece, if they had implored anyone of the masters and mistresses of the several homesteads to be their father and mother, not one of them would have reflected a moment but would have led them away and treated them as their own children. They might have asked what they chose, and they would not have appealed in vain.

They had already no need to feel any anxiety about victuals. They were at once taken to a house, and on the morrow someone else asked them out, and on the following day someone else; and so they could be a whole week here just as at home. Every one felt that they were not mere strolling musicians; Venik and Krista were just like their own children to them, and were treated royally.

Early on the morrow they again accompanied the young people of the village to school; after school, they accompanied them home, and in the village this seemed to be accepted as the natural order of things. Never in their lives before had the young people gathered so willingly to school, and never in their lives had they marched so merrily from school.

On the Sunday our young musicians asked to be allowed to play and sing in chapel, and Lord! how completely people forgot to look at the altar and fixed their eyes upon the gallery.

When in days gone by they had sung and played thus in the chapel of their native village, people, when they talked about “these children,” were quite accustomed to them. Here people heard them for the first time, and also heard such playing and singing for the first time. That Sunday they might have selected whichever farm they pleased to sup at; places were laid for them at every house.

It was fortunate for these young souls, at this period of their lives, that strangers treated them as if they were of their own family and at home.

Possibly, if things had fallen out otherwise, they would have lost their way and ended in filth and obscurity, out of which there is no means of extrication. But as it was, they never stumbled on to the false track to ruin; their path led them other whither.

The fame of the young musicians spread rapidly. The young people of neighbouring parishes also desired to be accompanied to and from school with music; an invitation was sent, and when Venik and Krista departed from the place where they had begun their musical pilgrimage, young and old escorted them a good piece of the way, as if the two wanderers had been their own children.

Just before bidding adieu, Venik and Krista struck up the “Orphan Child,” and the procession was drowned in tears. Then Venik struck up a lively tune, and the parting was a merry one. Their kind friends embraced them, and promised them whenever they chose to re-visit the village, to receive them with open arms.

So they separated. In the next village the young people were all expectancy, and Venik and Krista were welcomed as brother and sister.

All marched together to the accompaniment of music to and from school, then to the different houses in the village; and on the way there was a repitition of what took place in the first parish the two children had entered. The whole village went into raptures, and when the “Orphaned Child” was played people were drowned in tears.

This song had everywhere the power of enchantment. People were quite beside themselves, and yet they could have listened to it till nightfall and beyond. They scrutinized Venik and the strings of his violin, to see whether the instrument really was the source of what they heard issue from it. But the music must have been there evolved, although to them it appeared exactly as though the music came from Venik himself. As to Krista it was easier to satisfy oneself, she obviously spoke with a real mouth, and so it was easier to. believe in her heart.

On Sunday afternoon, young and old disported themselves on the village green, and there, too, Venik performed and Krista sang. All the youth of the village were soon in a ring round them, and behind the young people came the old, and then I really do not know who remained at home. Then might wicked people have gone from house to house and walked off with everything. No one would have prevented them, for no one was left at home to prevent them. But those wicked people who had slipped out to pilfer, hearing Venik and Krista, would have left off thieving, and would have gone and listened like the rest. Then Venik and Krista made a grand display of their stock of songs, playing what they just remembered and what they knew; they even sang and played masses, and the people said that they never before felt so festive even on a Sunday.

Their fame increased. Scarcely had they begun to feel somewhat at home here, before invitations came from two—from five villages all at once, begging them to come and delight the inhabitants. The whole district spoke of them, and if they had spent all their lives in going from village to village in the district, taking them in succession, our musicians would never have stood in need of their daily bread.

They even visited the town on market days, and when they posted themselves in the square, people ceased their bargaining and came to listen. The shopkeepers went so far as to be angry with them, and jealous of them for hindering business, but as soon as they heard them, they gave them gifts like the rest. They were looked upon, however, with still less favour by some other singers who had posted a large booth in the market place, and notified on a painted board what they were going to perform. These latter had not a living soul on their side, and soon had to clear off, and lamentably bewailed the state of trade. But they dared not grumble too loudly, for our child musicians had so completely won over the listeners to their side that they had as many champions as they had listeners. Besides, in all their audiences, they found old acquaintances—people who listened to them here on market days, had heard them long before in their own native village, and introduced themselves to the children as friends, or, perhaps, even as relations of their family.

It is needless, therefore, to add that Venik and Krista prospered in their tramping mode of life. They were dressed very becomingly. Venik wore his shepherd’s costume, only that everything was bran new, and fitted him like his own skin, in fact, the boy himself was like a bouquet. Krista was dressed in peasant’s costume, but in gala trim. On her head was a short silken handkerchief tied in a hood, a string of ducats on her neck, a neat corselet showed off her trim figure, and a short skirt let one catch a glimpse of a pretty foot in white stockings and low shoes.

They were like a picture. Everywhere they were taken for brother and sister, and to all intents and purposes were as brother and sister.

A year floated by like a day, and three years ike three days. Venik was now eighteen years of age, and Krista fifteen. The boy was like an ash sapling. As for the girl it was a pleasure to look at her. And, of course, people did look at her. Venik himself sometimes stole a furtive glance into her eyes as he used to look into the fresh mountain spring. It happened that once again they came to the town, but it was not market day; there was a performance at the town theatre, and the villagers of the various parishes putting on their best suits for the play, and happening to talk about the theatre, invited Venik and Krista also to accompany them thither. Krista looked at Venik, and Venik went with her.

All the way there they scarcely spoke a word. Krista was wondering what it would be like in the theatre, and Venik’s mind was perhaps similarly engaged. They were about to look upon an unknown world, and their eyes were downcast.

They had never yet been at the theatre, and when they had taken their places in it they felt as though a ton weight had fallen upon them. They saw a number of people before the curtain and behind the curtain—who could tell what there might be? Then the curtain was drawn up and they saw a wood, and here both bethought them of that wood which stretched behind their hillside; they bethought them of the hollow tree and of that river which ran below the hillside; they were half inclined to weep, and again they were half inclined to rapture. But all was different in that wood behind the curtain. There people walked and conversed and acted together, and our two spectators felt even that wood behind the curtain grow dear to them. Their whole attention was fixed upon it, and everything happened quite naturally in it, and like real life. Now they were constrained to laugh, and the next moment they were fain to cry.

The play was over, and in the body of the hall twilight reigned. When they listened they seemed to hear their own names called, and that by many voices. It really was their names, and before they could recover from their surprise they felt themselves touched by hands, many hands, and again before they could. recover from their surprise, they were gently lifted off their feet, and pushed behind the curtain into the wood, and a hundred throats clamoured for Venik to play and Krista to sing.

It was like a revelation. They did not know how it all happened, but they sang and played. It half seemed to them as though they were standing on their own hillside, and yet somehow it was quite different. When they had concluded the theatre was all agape with excitement, and like one mouth, and they were obliged to play and sing afresh, and when even this was concluded Venik saw that a body of fine gentlemen had gathered round Krista and were conversing with her about the stage, and about matters which he himself did not understand, and which she, perhaps, also did not understand. And then again they talked to her about matters which pained him, and which he did not wish to hear. Then he felt quite fit to cry, and so he took Krista by the hand and led her out of the theatre and out of the town.

Then Venik felt as though he had a different pair of eyes, and as though Krista had become changed from what she had been hitherto. Lovelier, a hundred, a thousand times lovelier than she had been hitherto, and than they told her she was in the theatre. Venik thought that he must tell her so; but when he sought words to express himself he could not find them, and when he had found them they stuck in his throat. And then he felt as though he had a different heart. What was that strange resonance in his bosom which he had never felt before, but the beating of that poor heart? It seemed to beat more audibly: it was full to overflowing; and when he asked himself what that was within it, he was fain to answer that it was Krista. He wished to tell her so, but his heart throbbed worse than ever. And while he hesitated, he grew as pale as a wall, and was fain to fetch a sigh from the very depths of his soul.

He could not the least recollect how long Krista had now been linked with him. So far as memory carried him she had always been at his side. With him in school, in church, on the hillside, on the road—everywhere she had been with him, and it could not be otherwise. But now he felt as though the Krista who walked with him was a different Krista from her with whom he used to walk. She was no longer like a deserted orphan whose brother he was, now she was a girl—Krista, and when he thought about her he trembled.

Until that hour they had shared the same couch, and when they had laid them down were like two birds of a single nest. To-day when they came to the farm house in which they were to pass the night, Krista lay down alone on the couch—for the first time alone, and Venik went out in front of the building and cried. He was alone at night for the first time in his life, and kept awake all night long.

The next day he scarcely dared to raise his eyes to Krista. He felt as though she were much above him, and as though he ought to beg her to allow him to remain by her side. He was gloomy and sorrowful, and when Krista looked upon him she too was gloomy and sorrowful, and her eyes were downcast. And yet they had not wronged one another in anything, they had done nothing to one another to merit blame, no single too-familiar word had ever passed between them.

That day the violin was left hanging on its nail, and Venik was well nigh heartbroken. He longed continually to meet with Krista, and when he had met her he longed to be away again, as though he had committed a crime. Then he fancied that Krista was ailing, and longed to enquire about her health; but when he saw her he saw, too, that she was as pink and fresh as a rose, and as beautiful as a day in spring; only her lips quivered for a moment as though they wished to whisper something, but they closed and did not whisper it. She was sadder and more gloomy than Venik himself, and conversed even less than he did.

Yet several days floated by, and they were more estranged. Venik did not play, Krista did not sing, they did not converse, they did not laugh together, they had no sweet confidences; and yet it seemed to Venik that he was happier then than he had ever been before. Until one morning Venik said, “Krista, I think that I am going to be ill.”

Krista looked at him apprehensively and said, “Why should’st thou be ill?”

“I feel so oppressed, Krista. Let us go to the hillside to the old oak wood. If I am to get well again I shall get well there: if not, I had rather die there.”

“Why should you die?” said Krista. “You are so young,” she added, and felt as though she had said too much, and as though in saying those words she had already sinned. She turned away from him, and after a long pause said, “If you feel so oppressed let us go. It is now three years since we were there.”

And they went. They went to the spot where they had first met one another, where together they had played and sung, where they had been like two angels, with the hollow tree for their sanctuary, and whence they had first gone forth together into the world.

The return journey was a dreary pilgrimage to both. Venik loitered wearily the nearer he approached the hillside; and once when he looked at Krista he said, “Krista, we are going each as it were alone.” They went, each as it were alone, immersed in his own private thoughts. At this Krista took him by the hand, and their hands were moist and like fire. In speech and manner they were equally embarrassed. Their mouths were parched, their steps tottered, and after this they again unclasped hands, and again went each as it were alone.

When they were exhausted by their walk they sat down under some willows, by a streamlet which fled away to the river, that they might rest themselves. Their feet rested, indeed, but in their soul they seemed to fret more and more.

In a neighbouring wood a cuckoo cuckooed. Krista looked at Venik, then yielded to tears, laid her head on Venik’s bosom and sobbed aloud. Venik stroked her hair, stroked her face, and was like one distraught. Atter this Krista ceased to weep, rose, went to the streamlet, gathered at it “fishes eyes,” and entwined them with her hair, and when Venik saw her it seemed to him that he could go mad with love of her—so dear she was to him.

Then they rose, went forward, and conversed. Venik felt that the previous burden had fallen from him, that his words were once more unfettered, and that he could breathe freely.

Only he still could not say the particular thing he wanted to say; and several times as he thought about it his words again became more constrained. But on the whole they felt freer. Already they could not say that they were going each by himself. Already they almost tripped along together.

So the next time they sat themselves down, under pretence of resting a little, Krista did not again fling herself weeping on to Venik’s bosom, but none the less did Venik take her head in his hands, none the less did he lay her on his bosom, stroke her hair and face, and wipe her eyes, although they were no longer bedimmed with tears.

It drew towards evening as they approached the hillside. The sun had set, and left but a faint blush in the western heavens; the day was over and had left but a shadow of itself; evening stole upon the world, and with it came faint odours and the song of birds.

When they reached the hillside and saw the hollow tree at the outskirts of the wood, Venik was like a child once more, and when he had seated himself at the threshold with Krista beside him he said, “Krista, now I feel ill no longer.”

And here it seemed to Venik that never in all his life had he felt his breast so full as it was just then, and that never in all his life he had felt what he then felt. If he had had to explain it all, he would not have succeeded, but when he looked at Krista he thought his looks alone explained it. He was half inclined to weep, but much more to rejoice. The river and the village far below them already veiled themselves in filmy mists; that cuckoo which had cuckooed to them as they sat beside the streamlet under the willows, seemed to» have accompanied them even hither; here it cuckooed from the wood.

And it seemed to them as if they had departed thence but yesterday. Village, river, field, wood, hollow tree,—everything was the same: even the nail on which Venik had hung his violin still stuck in the hollow tree. Only when he looked at Krista all seemed different. And he looked at her very much, and then everything was very different. Krista’s eye was inflamed and moist with tears, and when he touched her hand it was again as hot as fire.

When the moon rose, Krista said to Venik that he never was to think of her again, and Venik to this replied, “Prythee, why should’st thou unlink thyself from me.”

But, as her only reply, Krista again laid her head on his bosom, and wept and sobbed as if she would unlink herself from him for ever. She kissed his face, his eyes, his forehead, his mouth—it was the first time that she had kissed him.

Then Venik said, “Krista be mine.”

On this Krista nestled yet closer to his side—but then of a sudden she rose and ran away to the wood.

Venik sat a long time alone, and it seemed to him as though he had seen happiness flutter round him, and as if he had actually caught hold of it. He held it in his hands, he looked for it and did not know what had become of it. After this he shouted, “Krista, Krista,” and when Krista responded not he went into the wood, gathered leaves and moss with both hands, carried them in his arms to the tree, and in its hollow trunk strewed a couch. Then he sat on the threshold, and was like a sentinel on guard.

There were no signs of Krista, but still it seemed to Venik as though she was there, and as if he saw her at every glance, and at every glance she seemed more fair. Then she was there, she stood behind him like a shadow, she never stirred, her head drooped upon her bosom, and her hands clasped together.

“Krista, I have but now prepared thy couch in the tree,” said Venik, and his voice trembled so that it was not in him to say anything more. Krista without a word went and laid herself down in the tree on the leaves and moss.

Venik retired a few paces toward the wood, and laid himself down beside it.

But he did not sleep. It seemed to him as though he must make certain whether Krista slept or not. He rose, stole silently to the tree, looked in a brief moment, and in that moment Krista raised her head.

Venik as though with a knife in his heart retired to his previous resting-place, and laid himself down once more.

Then he fell asleep, and all his dreams ran on Krista. And he fancied that she laid her head on his hand; he fancied that he awoke, and that as he held it so his eyelids opened upon the happiest moment of his life. He fancied that he was completely happy, that nothing more was wanting to him, and in the consciousness of that happiness he again fell asleep.

And again he seemed to see upon her face a fire and a hot enthusiasm, and in presence of that fire and that hot enthusiasm all girlish modesty was effaced, so that she had it neither in her looks nor her words. He dreamt so vividly that he fancied it could not be a dream. And even when he awoke in the morning he did not know how far waking realities differed from a dream, for that past night was to him both reality and a dream. And he dreaded lest it was reality, and he dreaded yet more lest it was a dream.

Krista had not yet awoke, she had not yet risen. He went to rouse her, and went to the tree along with the rays of the rising sun, which aimed its level beams into the hollow trunk. And when he had reached the spot along with them, at first he looked in furtively and then more boldly, the couch was vacant. Krista was not on it.

Venik felt as though only now he was immersed in dreams, as if only now he was laid in bed. He looked again and again into the tree, he looked again and again around him, leant his head on his hand to collect his thoughts—but he was not dreaming. He was awake. He tossed about the moss and leaves as though Krista might be under them, but she was not there.

And all at once it seemed to Venik as though the whole heaven had crumbled at his feet, as though the stars had fallen from the sky, and the last day had already come upon him. He grew as livid as a corpse, he longed to hurry away and bury himself in the grave, that he might the sooner rise from the dead; and his eyes were suffused with blood, so that they looked like bleeding suns.

And then he thrust his fingers through his hair, ran along the hillside and past the wood, and shouted “Krista! Krista!” But there was no reply, then he ran into the wood, searched it cross by cross, and shouted, “Krista! Krista!” But there was no reply anywhere.

Then it seemed to Venik as though he had roved that wood for several days, as though he had grown old, as though he had lost the power of speech, as though he was exhausted, and his feet refused to stir. On this he staggered towards the hollow tree, and rested in weariness, and was still.

He waited.

He waited for Krista to come—for her to return. But even if she had returned, it seemed to him that now the world would be the world no longer, that the heaven would be the heaven no longer, since once the sun had stooped from the sky and had lost its pathway in the heavens. And Krista returned not.

Venik waited that day and that night: he waited the next day and the next night. At night he slept on that couch of leaves and moss from which Krista had vanished. He only felt that he was alone, and the hollow of the tree resounded with his sighs.

And once again he went out like a sportsman to the wood, and as though he was bent on sport, and shouted, “Krista! Krista!” But he was an unlucky sportsman, and then he felt as though a wound had been made in his side by some one, and as though blood trickled over that side of his body.

Krista had made that wound, she had deserted him, and now for the first time he was an orphan.