XIII
THE VEGETARIAN
He was full of rage, through and through, yet scarcely knew at what he was raging. He felt a moment’s surprise at his own powers of feeling in these days, and a kind of panic because of the sudden sweep of his emotions. What had come over him, he wondered. Yet he would not have had it otherwise. Though often he felt bewildered by the change in him, he felt at the same time a voluptuous relish of his own strangeness. Everything he saw was in stronger colours. He felt himself more and more of an outsider, looking on at this strange, highly coloured world about him.
But now he was in a rage and banged things about in his bedroom, as though to prove it to himself, for there was no one else to see. Yet it was Saturday. His homework was done — all but those blasted French verbs and he would wrestle with them tomorrow. Something had gone wrong right after breakfast. Now he remembered. His sister Meg had told him to go out and gather vegetables for the Harvest Festival at the church, and he had asked why couldn’t somebody else do it, and she had told him not to be so lazy, and he had answered there was a fat chance of his being lazy with everyone in the house ordering him to do things. Meg had said no more nonsense, please, and at that moment Eden had appeared and told him to hop on his bicycle like a good kid and take his pair of shoes to the shoemaker’s to be half-soled. Eden had put the shoes into his hand and smiled at him, and Finch, in spite of himself, had given a half-grudging smile in return. He had taken the shoes to the shoemaker’s. He had gathered the vegetables and, surveying the great overgrown pumpkins in their golden ripeness, the rosetted cauliflowers in their crisp leaves, the long pale vegetable marrows, his anger had melted from him and he had felt wildly, boisterously happy. He had sung as he collected the vegetables, glad of the noise of the wind that drowned his voice.
But now it all returned to him. That was the way with him in these days. He would be swept by some sudden gust of feeling, then it would pass, only to return again, like a recurring wave, weaker, perhaps, but still powerful enough to shake him.
He flung down his books. He stumbled against a chair, his arm struck his clothes-brush that lay on the chest of drawers and knocked it off. He kicked it beneath the bed. He set his jaw and glared after it. He made up his mind that he would leave it there till next he needed it, but a moment later found himself on his hands and knees fishing it out. Shamefaced he brushed the knees of his trousers with it, as if to convince some onlooker that all his movements were intentional and sober.
He went down the two flights of stairs in a loose jog-trot, his hands in his pockets. Late summer warmth was claiming this day and more to follow. The front door stood open. All that showed beyond it appeared of a more serene yet deeper temper than on the days before. The leaves, still thick on the trees, had, in what a short while, turned to a rich mahogany, a pale gold like the first dandelion, a blazing red or a tender pinkish gold, and these to Finch were the most beautiful. The tips of these pinkish gold leaves of the maples were as though dipped in a deeper essence, so that the variegated splendour of the tree far surpassed the freshness of its spring.
Finch stood staring in wonder, the clement air moving gently across his face. Pungent scents of the fall rising from the ravine. He had a vague desire to be absorbed into the scene, to forget himself and be a part of it for ever. Now anger was gone out of him, and when Eden called from an upstairs window — “Hullo, there, did you take the shoes?” he answered docilely — “Yes. He said he’d have them ready by Tuesday.”
“Good,” returned Eden and added — “Thanks.”
Finch sauntered round the house to where he had left the vegetables mounded in a wheelbarrow. He felt proud of them — so clean, fresh, and well-grown. He had disposed some glossy red peppers among them and some bunches of parsley that had became dark green, strong and curly in the autumn cold. At the last moment he had not been able to resist adding a few onions, stripped of their outer skin and as pretty as could be, he thought.
Wright drove across from the stables in a light wagon drawn by an old horse, thirty-two years old but still handsome, with her thick arched neck and blond mane. And from the flower border came Meg, her arms full of chrysanthemums and the intensely red blooms of salvia that seemed to be dripping blood.
Wright, jumping down from the wagon, asked:
“Is that the lot, Miss?”
“Yes. Have you the pears?”
He held up a basket of late pears. “I picked out the best-shaped ones, Miss, and put in a few big pippins. I thought they might come in useful.”
“Very, very nice,” she said, examining them with an experienced eye; then remarked the onions.
“Oh, not onions, Finch, not onions.”
Wakefield came running out of the house.
“They smell,” he shouted, and bent over them. “Ugh, they stink!”
Finch took him by the scruff and pressed his face against the onions.
“Have a good smell,” he urged.
Meg interfered. “Now, boys. And Wakefield, don’t let me ever hear you use that horrid word again.”
Wakefield assumed an elegant air, his fingertips shielding his nose.
“Quelle odeur,” he said mincingly.
Meg smiled at Wright and Finch, her eyes saying — “How clever he is!”
The little boy, suddenly clinging, caught her hand and begged — “May I go with you, Meggie, to decorate the church?”
“Indeed you may. And here comes Piers with the car.”
Piers drove up in the family car which still showed signs of its last muddy journey. He sat smiling serenely while Wright arranged the vegetables and fruit in the back of the car.
Finch wondered, why does he always look so pleased with himself?
On the seat besides Piers was a basket of purple grapes and a bunch of Michaelmas daisies The grapes, with their bloom, as though of a breath blown on them, had so closely grown in the bunch that not one more could have forced its way in.
Piers smiled, as though he had invented them.
“I thought they were pretty,” he said.
Meg leaned over the door of the car to look. “Oh, how nice! Where did you get them, Piers?”
“I picked the Michaelmas daisies at the edge of the woods. The grapes I bought in Mistwell.”
“You must let me pay you back.”
“No, no. That’s my contribution.”
Wakefield cried — “I picked the salvia and with nice long stems.
Finch brought onions! What do you think of onions in a church, Piers?”
“Good Lord,” exclaimed Piers.
“Well, the good Lord made them too, didn’t He?” Finch’s voice broke out in that uncontrolled way it had.
He stood, shaken again by anger, looking after the car as, with Meg and Wakefield and the flowers established in it, it moved off. The wagon, driven by Wright, followed, the blond mane of the horse, the blond hairs on the back of Wright’s neck, glistening in the red sunlight.
No one had asked him, Finch thought bitterly, to help to decorate the church. No one had thanked him for what he had taken so many pains to do properly. Why, he must have examined twenty pumpkins before making his choice. And there lay the onions discarded on the grass, their tender tubular stems bruised.
Suddenly he burst out laughing at himself. Sentimentalizing over a bunch of onions — what a fool he was! No wonder his brothers made fun of him. Hands in pockets, he jigged up and down on agile feet. He was feeling very much alive, almost jocular at the thought of his own peculiarities.
The spaniel Floss appeared from beneath the hedge and, seeing him so lively, rose and stood up against him, grinning into his face. Finch romped with her, thrusting her from him while she returned each time with all her weight against him. At last the two came down together on the grass and clasping her to him he rolled shouting with laughter…. Then, as though galvanized, he leaped up and ran toward the stables, calling to her to race him there. She ran a little way, her long ears flopping, b
ut, seeing Renny in the distance, turned abruptly in his direction.
This defection sobered Finch and he felt unaccountably hurt, for after all Renny was her master and she adored him. Still, why should she run after him at the very first glimpse? “It’s true,” thought Finch, “that I can’t hold anyone — not even Floss. And I’ve been so good to her.” He remembered the times he had taken burrs out of her long ears and plumed tail, brought her in out of the rain and dried her underpart on a towel.
He thought he would not go out of the sunshine into the stables, though he wanted to inspect the new colt. But instead he would go to the small enclosure beyond and play with the six lambs that lived there. But, before that, he would smoke the cigarette he had pinched from the battered box on Eden’s desk. He looked at it rather dubiously, for it had got a crack in it from lying in his pocket. He went to a secluded spot where the silo jutted out from the barn and lighted the cigarette, carefully holding the crack together between finger and thumb. He inhaled, and the sweet scent of the tobacco — Eden refused to smoke cheap cigarettes — mingled with the sweet scent of a brushwood fire which a farmhand was tending.
A little black hen, with a single half-grown late chick, was scratching about in the bits of straw and the weeds nearby. At the most insignificant find she clucked excitedly to her chick, which ran to examine and, if possible, devour though its crop was already bulging. When the cigarette was finished and the stub thrown down, the little hen hastened to offer it to her chick, who several times picked it up and dropped it, with enquiring bright glances at its parent.
“Why, look here,” Finch said, “haven’t you got any sense? Now, I’ll tell you what, I’ll get you something you’ll really like.” He though he would go into the barn and fetch a handful of chopped corn.
He went in at the door and stood motionless a moment in the cool, sweet-smelling dimness. From below came the contented moo of a cow and the sound of water running from a tap. Then from the yard there was the sound of a lamb bleating. Were they moving the lambs to a new place? He ran down the steep stairs. He saw a farmhand filling a bucket at the tap and asked:
“Are they moving the lambs?”
The man was a Scot. He answered, with a grin — “Well, they’re moving one o’ them. They’re butchering it.”
Finch ran along the cement floor and looked over the half-door. The lamb was lying on its side, held down by one man, while another, with a knife …
“Stop!” shouted Finch. “Don’t!”
The man with the knife turned his head.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because you can’t — not on a morning like this!”
“I have orders. You’ll soon be getting nice roast lamb for dinner.”
The lamb raised its head and looked at Finch.
“I tell you to stop!” he shouted. He vaulted over the half-door and ran across the cobbled yard.
Before he reached the lamb it had uttered its cry of pain. Its white woolly breast was reddened by the blood that ran from its throat. Its disproportionate woolly legs moved, as though to run, then were still.
“Ah, now,” said the Scot, “don’t you worry. It didn’t hurt the wee thing at all.”
Finch turned and fled, as though from a massacre.
Over the paths, across the stubble-fields he ran till he hid himself in the darkness of the pine wood. This pine wood was not large. Like everything at Jalna, it was not on a grand scale, though the trees themselves had grandeur because of their great age and massive boughs. They seemed to create silence. Even the migrating birds, when resting here, ceased their twittering. The carpet of pine needles muffled the thud of twittering. The carpet of pine needles muffled the thud of horses’ hooves on the bridle path. At its edge a few mushrooms, smooth as pearls, thrust upward toward the light. Finch could hear how the silence of the wood was broken by hoarse sobs as he ran. Yet he did not know he was crying.
In the deepest part he threw himself down on the ground and hid his face in the crook of his arm. The lamb lay beside him, its trusting eyes close to his. “You will save me, I know.” Then its bleat of pain — its death that penetrated his very marrow…. It had trusted him. It had trusted the man who butchered it. It had lived the few months of its life trusting and gambolling in joy of its life. And they had killed it to eat it! To devour it! Again he saw its gashed throat with the blood gushing on to the snow-white wool. His stomach revolted. He raised himself and was sick. Then he lay back, relieved a little, and was quiet.
He got up and covered the place where had had been sick with pine needles. He was shivering and moved to the edge of the wood where the warm sunshine touched him. He discovered a small mushroom and picked it. Its earthy scent came to him and it was damp and earth-cold against his palm.
He could see the lamb resting against the breast of the Good Shepherd, its woolly legs dangling. “Oh, Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, grant us Thy peace,” he kept repeating, “grant us Thy peace.” The words, as though loosing a river of grief, brought blinding tears to his eyes. He neither saw nor heard Eden’s approach and was only aware of him when he dropped to the ground beside him.
“Oh, hullo,” said Eden. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you want to be left alone?”
“I don’t care.” Finch flung an arm across his face to hide it.
Eden lighted a cigarette and clasped his hands across his knees. He said — “I see plenty of trouble ahead of you. You take things too hard.”
Finch’s eyes were hidden by his arm but his mouth was draw into a grimace. He tried to speak but made only incoherent sounds.
Eden went on — “You should be like me. I don’t let things worry me — either at home or abroad.”
There was silence except for a sudden breeze that whispered among the pines. Then, without uncovering his eyes, Finch asked — “Eden, have you ever seen a lamb killed?”
“So that’s what’s the matter! Why did you see it?”
“I just happened to.”
“Well, you know they are killed, don’t you? What about lamb and mint sauce?”
“I’ll never touch it again.”
“What about the poor steers and pigs?”
Finch sat up. “I’ll never eat meat again! Why should I? People get on without it. Why — Eden, the look in the lamb’s eyes….” Again his mouth was contorted.
“They do indeed. Whole nations have given up eating flesh and survived.” And Eden began to quote:
Life which all creatures love and strive to keep,
Wonderful, dear, and pleasant unto each,
Even to the meanest: yea, a boon to all
Where pity is, for a pity makes the world
Soft to the weak and noble for the strong.
Unto the dumb lips of his flock he lent
Sad pleading words — tum-te-te-tum….
“I forget the rest.” Eden frowned crossly.
Finch asked — “Who wrote that?”
“I forget. But I don’t think much of it as poetry, do you?”
“I dunno.” But Finch was flattered by having his opinion asked.
“Orpheus taught men to abstain from slaughter yet he himself was torn to bits. But you know all about that.”
What would it be like, Finch wondered, to have Eden for a friend? But Eden would soon tire of him, he knew. Even now he fell silent, looking straight ahead with an odd, unseeing look. Finch examined his profile. He was like his mother, Finch had heard said, heard his grandmother say, in her harsh, sardonic voice — “Like his poor flibberty-gibberty mother.” It must feel strange to be beautiful like Eden. Not that he would have wanted to. It would have been embarrassing to him. But he could have done with a few good looks, he thought.
Eden took a notebook from his pocket, found a stub of a pencil in another pocket, and looked enquiringly at Finch.
“Must you stay here?” he asked politely.
“Why — why — I
don’t know,” stammered Finch.
“Because the first lines of a poem have just come into my head and I should like to be alone to write them down. If I wander off I shall probably forget them, but a walk will do you good. There’s a lot of room.”
Finch scrambled to his feet. “Oh — all right. I’ll go.” He looked vaguely about, then turned to Eden. “You won’t tell, will you?” he asked, reddening.
“Tell what?”
“Wh-what I said about — the lamb?”
“Not a word. I’m good at keeping secrets. But are you really going to reject it when it comes to the table?”
“You wait and see.”
“Knowing your appetite, I’ll believe it when I see it — not before.”
Finch spoke loudly. “You’ll see it! I’ll never eat meat again.”
He felt a constriction in his throat. Tears scalded his eyes. He stumbled over a fallen branch as he hurried away and all but fell.
Eden called out — “Don’t hurry. I wasn’t driving you off.”
Finch turned back. “Eden — you won’t tell that I —” he could not go on.
Eden finished for him — “That you were crying? God, no! What a little duffer you are! Get out! You’ve made me forget that first line.”
Finch had his midday meal at the school to which he went each day by train. During the following week he refused meat, and if he left it on his plate at supper no one noticed. But when Saturday came it was a different story. It was a day still warm and doors and windows stood open.
When the family collected for the one o’clock dinner they were met by an excellent smell of roast lamb and mint sauce. The grandmother, supported by a son on either side, sniffed the rich odour and made a gallant attempt to walk faster. “Don’t be so slow,” she said to Ernest. “I’m not a centurion yet.”
“Centenarian, Mamma.”
“Ha — well, what was a centurion, then?”
“He was commander of a hundred men in the Roman army.”
She gave a roguish grin. “Well, I never commanded a hundred men — not quite a hundred, no!”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 163