Stijn Streuvels

“ Soaked through with the wet, the children came creeping out of the ditch and now, holding their breaths, stood looking at that tree which was so awesomely cleft and at that crippled bough which hung swinging over space. The thunder still rumbled, but it was very far away, like heavy waggons rattling over hard stones. Lowietje caught his little brother up on his back and they made straight for the opening of the drove, where they saw a clear sky. They must get out of the wood, away from those trees where such fearful things happened and where it cracked so and where it was so dark. ”

“ The sky was hung with a thick grey shroud; and in the east a long thin cleft had been torn in the grey; and behind that, deep down, was a dull-golden glow, gleaming like a great brazen serpent. A keen wind shook the cherry-blossom and blew a cold, fragrant air into the window. All the green distance lay dead as yet, half-hidden, asleep in the morning mist; and neither man nor beast was visible, nor even a wreath of smoke from a chimney.
What was the time? She threw a wrap over her shoulders, which were getting chilled, and went carefully down the bedroom steps. ”

“ Out of a dirty hodge-podge of crazy houses, walls black with smoke, little inner rooms which for the first time saw the white light of day, with ragged strips of wall-paper and whitewash among rotten beams and rafters straight and askew, all of which his stubborn labour had made to fall and disappear, and out of those deep-dug foundations, out of that drudging in the dirty ground, those stout walls had grown stone by stone, had risen high into the sky—oh, the hard work of it!—and, tapering by degrees, had shot up to form that mighty building. ”

“ Mother was up to her elbows in the golden dough of the cakebread, stirring and beating and patting the jumble of eggs and flour and milk. Horieneke took the crying baby out of the cradle, shaking and tossing it in the air, and went into the garden just outside the door. The golden afternoon sun lay all around and everything was radiant with translucid green. The little path lay neatly raked and the yellow daffodils stood, like brass trumpets, closely ranked on their stalks; under the shrubs bright violets peeped out with raised eyebrows, like the grinning faces of little old wives. ”

“ In the fields, the folk were hard at work. The land was turned up and torn and broken by the gleaming plough and lay steaming in purple clods in the sun’s life-giving rays. Everything swarmed with life and movement. The houses were done up and coated with fresh whitewash, the shutters painted green, till it all shouted from afar in a glad mosaic, with the blue of the sky and the young leafage of the trees, under the brown, moss-grown roofs.
And the days crept on, each counted and marked off: so many white stripes on the rafters and black stripes on the almanack ”

“ You are here now, to-day, with your bright, clear eyes, young and beautiful as angels; we have watched over you, sheltered you against all that could have harmed or offended your innocence, far from the corrupt world of whose existence you have not even known. But to-morrow you will enter the wide world, with only your weak flesh to fight against life’s dangers: depravity, falsehood, lies and sin. Now life will begin for you, now for the first time will you be called upon to fight, to show courage and to stand firm. ”

“ The dogs sprang forward, the cart rumbled along and soon the whole thing had become a shapeless black patch among the black trees. In the still night they could just hear the wheels rattling over the cobbles; and then Ivo and Frazie went home again.
A breeze came playing through the garden, sighing now and again with a sound as soft as silk; the moon shone upon the dark trees and its light played like golden snow-flakes dancing and fluttering down upon the gleaming crests of the green bushes and the milk-white plain. The air was heavy and stifling, full of warm damp ”

“ Why couldn’t she sleep now? She was so tired, so worn out with that reaping; and it was so warm here, so stifling and it smelt queer: what a being could come to, when he was dead!
Had she slept at all? She had been lying there so long ... and there was that smell! She wished she had sent Warten away and gone herself to lie in the goat-house; here, beside that corpse ... but, after all, it was Zeen....
The flame of the candle flickered and everything flickered with it—the loom, the black rafters and the crucifix—in dark shadow-stripes upon the wall. ‘Twas that kept her awake. ”

“ On another evening, when mother and Horieneke were alone at home, the seamstress brought the new clothes: a whole load of white muslin in stiff white folds full of satin bows and ribbons and white lace. They had to be tried on; and Horieneke stood there, for the first time in her life, all in white, like an angel. But the happiness lasted only for a spell: there came a noise and every one in the room fled and the clothes were hastily taken off and put away.
Every day, when the boys were at school and father in the fields, neighbours came to look at the clothes. ”

“ In the afternoon, she sat down at the window and read her Thomas à Kempis. Then all was quite still: no hammering behind the wall, no boys in the street, only the soft tapping of the canary in his food-trough and the tick of the pendulum; everything was quiet as though in an enchanted sleep. The sun glowed through the geranium-leaves and cast on the red-tiled floor a broad, round shadow which took the whole afternoon to creep from the legs of the stove to the front-door.
The flies buzzed round on the rafters of the ceiling or ran along the cracks of the white-scoured table. ”

“ Here wives walked barefoot, bent, with baskets on their arm from which they kept taking potatoes and laying them, at a foot’s distance, in the open trench. In a corner of the field stood the farmer, his big body leaning on a stick; and his dark eyes watched his labourers.
There, in the midst of them, was Horieneke, bent also like the others, in her coarse workaday clothes, with a basket of seed-potatoes on her arm; and her red-gold curls now hung, like long corkscrews, wet against her face; and every now and then she would draw herself up, tossing her head back to keep them out of her eyes. ”

“ The green drove now stood bare and bleak: two rows of straight trunks which grew less and faded away in the blue mist.
Yonder comes something creeping up: a shapeless thing, like two little black stripes, with something else; and it approaches....
At last and at length, out of those little stripes, appear a man and a wife; and, out of the other thing, a barrel-organ on a cart, with a dog between the wheels. ”

“ On the winding paths, among the pinks, anemones, guelder-roses and jasmine-bushes, walked stately white figures in trailing garments, with wreaths of white roses and yellow flowers gleaming on their golden tresses, which they shook out over their white shoulders. All the world was one pure vista full of blue, curling mist and fresh, untasted fragrance. A soft melody of dreamy song was wafted through the air. And Horieneke saw herself also playing in that great garden, an angel among angels. ”

“ Zeen left his sickle on the ground and went straight off the field. She saw him go slowly, the poor old soul, lurching like a drunken man, and disappear behind the trees. Then she took her straw-band and bundled up all the little heaps of corn, one after the other, and bound them into sheaves. She next took the sickle and the hook and just went cutting away like a man: stubbornly, steadily, with a frenzied determination to get it done. The more the corn fell, the quicker she made the sickle whizz. ”

“ Lean men and pale women, carrying their kettles and food-satchels in their hands, beat the slippery pavements with their wooden shoes. Doors and windows flew open; life began; every one walked with a busy air, knew where he was going; and they vanished here and there, through a big gate or behind a narrow door that shut with a bang. Carts with green stuff, waggons with sand and coal drove this way and that. ”

“ Zeen opened his eyes—two green, glazed eyes, which no longer saw things—and wriggled his arms from under the clothes:
“Why don’t you make the goat stop bleating?” he stammered.
They looked at one another.
“Zalia, why won’t you speak to me?... And what are all these people doing here?... I don’t want any one to help me die!... I and Zalia.... I and Zalia.... Look, how beautiful! Zalia, the procession’s going up the wall there.... Why don’t you look?... It’s so beautiful!... And I, I’m the only ugly one in it....”
“He’s wandering,” whispered Treze. ”

“ Her heart throbbed; and she walked beside mother, with eyes wide-open, looking round at every window, up one street and down another, crying aloud each time for joy when she saw pretty things displayed. They bought white slippers with little bows, a splendid wreath of white lilies of the valley, a great veil of woven lace, a white-ivory prayer-book, a mother-of-pearl rosary with a little glass peep-hole in the silver crucifix, showing all manner of pretty things. Horieneke sighed with happiness. ”

“ Trientje tied her pinafore over the little one’s face and they sat there huddled together, shuddering and peeping through their fingers and saying loud Our Fathers.
“You must not look, Lowietje: the lightning would strike you blind.”
The trees wrung their heavy boughs and everything squeaked and rustled terribly. The water rained and poured from the leafy vault on Trientje’s straw hat, on Lowietje’s bare head and right through his little torn shirt. And clap and clap of thunder fell; the sky opened and belched fire like a hot oven. ”

“ The hard bottom of the ditch was the boarded floor and the tree-trunks were the legs of father’s trousers and the branches ran up and were lost in the darksome roofwork. Two sharp rays of light beamed through the shut dormer-window. It must be day then! And this awful night was past! All my dismay was gone and a bold feeling came over me, something like the feeling of gladness that follows on a solved problem. I would make Lowietje and Sarelke and all the boys at school hark to my tale, that I would! I had slept a whole night alone in the loft! And the rats! And the ghosts! Ooh! ”

“ From the ceiling, in a white cage, hung the canary, which hopped from one perch to the other, all day long, without ever singing. On the window-seat, behind the little curtains, blossomed tall geraniums and phlox, which, through the mesh of the muslin curtains, sent a blissful fragrance through the room.
Life went its monotonous gait, measured by the slow tick of the hanging clock, that big, stupid, laughing face which so pitilessly turned its two unequal fingers round and round. ”

“ All of this was clouded in a blue smoke which rose from the holes of the censer continuously swung to and fro by the arm of a roguish serving-boy. Far at the back, in the dark, in the black stripes of shadow cast by the pillars or under the cold bright patch of a lamp or a stand of votive candles was an old wife, huddled under her hood, with bent back, praying, and here and there a troop of boys who by turns dropped their wooden shoes or fought with one another’s rosaries. ”

“ When everything had been thoroughly inspected, they sat and chatted in the box arbour, very seriously, like grown-up people. Then they also became tired and Horieneke put her arm over Doorke’s shoulder, allowed her golden curls to play in his eyes and in this way they walked out, down the road, towards the wood. Here they were all alone with the birds twittering in the trees and the crickets chirping in the grass beside the ditch.
Everywhere, as far as they could see, was corn and green fields and sunshine and stillness. They strolled down the long, cheerful road. ”

“ X. WHITE LIFE
Her life flowed on as a little brook flows under grass on a Sunday noon in summer, flowed on in calm seclusion, far from the bustle of the crowd, secretly, steadily, uninterrupted save by ever-recurring little incidents, peacefully approaching old age. She sat in her little white room, behind the muslin curtains, making lace. Her cottage stood a little way back from the street, shining behind a neatly-raked flower-garden. ”

“ And green and red and yellow shafts of light slanted through the stained-glass panes and mingled with the blue incense-wreaths. They made the corners of the brasswork shine and brought smiles to the faces of the saints in their niches. A splash of gold fell on the curly heads of the children, dark and fair; and tiny rays flashed upon the gilt edges of their prayer-books. The congregation prayed diligently and the full voices sang the joyful Gloria in excelsis with the organ. ”

“ She held herself tucked against the wall, twisted and turned, pinched her eyes to, but did not sleep. The smell got into her nose and throat and it became very irksome, unbearable. And she got out of bed again, to open the window. A fresh breeze blew into the room; far away beyond, the sky began to brighten; and behind the cornfield she heard the singing beat of a sickle and the whistling of a sad, drawling street-ditty:
“They’re at work already.”
Now she lay listening to the whizzing beat and the rustle of the falling corn and that drawling, never-changing tune.... ”