Three Stories/Under the Hollow Tree/Chapter 7

by Vítězslav Hálek

 

CHAPTER VII.

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N the old oak tree was yet strewed the couch of moss and leaves. He laid himself down to rest upon it and was utterly alone. And now even his thoughts had no basis in reality. He began to smile vacantly at everything just as Krista had.

And a strange numbness stole upon him, and though it was a warm summer’s evening, winter seemed to close in around him.

And the birds sang now no more their carol of the spring, the tuneful stream was stayed, the full voiced choir was hushed, only from time to time they piped a dreary call-note as if to tell the world they still were there. And then when Venik took into his hand his violin it seemed as though, like the song of those birds, the melody had vanished from its strings. The tale he had to tell upon them was already told, his joy had throbbed itself out upon them, his grief had sobbed itself to rest upon them, and now he scarcely knew what had come over them. Already they held but empty tones, already their melody had ceased to speak.

The river hummed its old perpetual song and above the neighbouring village, his home and birthplace, the sleep of dreams descended. And fitful slumber seemed to flap about the hollow tree and to mock and gibe at Venik.

But perhaps only that aged tree understood the deep delight of slumber. Venik crept out of it and then he began again to muse and speculate and question within himself, whether all must be that had been, and whether there was not some power in nature to efface and roll back the past. And his own soul answered him that all must be as it was and that he and Krista had understood one another at last. Krista had always smiled and smiled, and still she smiled even in the earth.

Then it seemed strange to him that he and Krista, who had grown up together like folded leaves upon a single bough, should have diverged so far from one another, that one could neither see nor touch the other; or they were like two mountains set side by side—for half their height they were like one single growth, for the other half their summits grew wider and wider apart, and never more encountered, or only when the snow wreath and the tempest swept over them, and one summit sent its message to the other on the wings of the lightning. Thus he had sent his message to Krista on the wings of the lightening, and it had stricken her to death.

And he began to feel oppressed within that hollow tree, or perhaps it oppressed him to be on that couch of leaves and moss, which now so vainly began to be a couch. He laid himself down before, the tree just on the spot where in the old days he and Krista had buried his mother, that is to say, the sweet briar and the willow wands and the sweet marjoram, and out of it had made his mother. And here on that little tomb he felt more at peace.

And it was just as if he saw and heard around him everything that he saw and heard here in yonder distant past, when here he shepherded the sheep.

There stood the little Krista, whose piping treble sang the gloria to his violin, and who wept because he chased her from him, and because she was a a poor orphaned girl.

And he began anew to smile vacantly at everything, just, ah! just as he had seen the dead Krista coldly smile.

And then a cuckoo cuckooed and its note rang lonely through that lonely wood, where now but few birds sang, rang out as if in witness of a desolate world, and as if it tolled a dirge of endless woe. “Ah! ha! thou hast scarce anyone to whom to cuckoo now,” said Venik, and smiled to himself thereat.

Then a bat flew out and fluttered round the tree, just as if it sought something.

And Venik smiled tauntingly and said, “Brother mine, seek.” Then he perceived that there were two bats and that they had found one another, and in the tree a piping from a nest of young bats made itself heard. And after this Venik said, “Ha! ha! how fares it with the young vampires, how fares it with the young vampires?” And again he added, “I also am but a hollow tree.”

Then he began to look to the horizon and saw the river glittering dead white below him, and above him a wan firmament and wan stars. And again his eyes looked deep into those star-depths, and far away in that direction whither Krista’s eyes had strayed, and he began to murmur fitful snatches of melody.

The hillside and his life upon it began to skip about in his memory, like the ignes fatui of the night. And thus, too, wildly rose and fell his snatches of wild melody.

Then he said to himself, “What is it all worth? When chill autumn comes, the birds must hie away away home!”

And he felt the chill winter round him once again. And once again he peered into the tree, at the couch of moss and leaves and said, “What shall I do with thee?”

And he arose and gathered up about half of the leaves and moss. “Thou shalt smile too,” he said, and made a fire of it. All was winter in his heart, and he warmed himself and smiled inanely and said to himself, “it was a merry bout to warm himself at Krista’s couch.” Then he patted down the leaves and moss and added more fuel until he made a roaring bonfire of it, and it burnt higher and higher and crackled and smiled as he had said. And he smiled too. And there was yet merrier sport to come: for the old hollow tree took fire from the bonfire and burnt like a gigantic fiery column, scattering sparks in all directions. The whole horizon was aflame, the smoke stretched ruddy to the firmament, and Venik thought the sport grew merrier, and merrier so that now everything smiled upon him, even the whole world.

Then he took his violin once again for the last time, and played just as if he had gathered all the dust of life into a single pinch and would scatter it to the winds by the vibrations of his instrument.

The hollow tree was a gorgeous theatre. It shone and crackled and Venik played by its fitful glare. He played and imitated all the birds which had already fled in terror. In sooth he played feelingly and finely, just as Krista had done, when she fell in a fainting fit, and Venik smiled madly at it all.

Then in the village a bell rang out from the very chapel in which he and Krista once played and sang together. The bell rang out an alarm, and when the people from the village streamed on to the hill side, Venik was still playing underneath the tree so that it looked and all fell out just as in the old song where the linden tree burns and its sparks fall upon the girl lying beneath it, only that here an oak tree burnt and under it was Venik.

And just as the people began to throng the hill side the hollow tree collapsed with a horrible crackling and in its embers the song of Venik was silenced. The people saw exactly how it buried him, and a shriek ran along the whole hill side as if from a single throat.

The family of the bats fluttered round. Then all burnt out, all was extinguished, all was silenced, the music of two human lives was hushed and on the face of death the smile was turned to stone.

The hollow tree, Krista’s couch, Venik, the violin—all was one cinder.