by H. E. Bates
In the heart of the copse Israel came suddenly on a tall young fir-tree, standing alone. The air was still but this tree swayed its head lightly and proudly. Some trees, like the hawthorn and elm, were already in leaf. The blackthorn was still in blossom. The rest of the copse seemed asleep. But this tree seemed neither waking nor sleeping.
Israel ran a hand up its trunk and calculated its height. It was tall but the trunk was slender and strong and of the right thickness. He laid down the axe, took off his coat, and picked up the axe again, and stood looking at the tree.
Then suddenly he dropped the axe, clutched at his heart and grew pale. All this happened suddenly, as if he were trying to seize something before it seized him. But from his pallor, his shrunken features, his difficult breathing and doubled body it was plain it had come too swiftly. He sank to his knees, lay half on his side and clutched himself strongly. But his strength seemed to do nothing but squeeze out of him a deathly perspiration. Yet he kept up this clutching, as though to wring himself dry, and sank all the time lower and lower.
There suddenly crossed his mind the thought: ‘I shall never get up again.’
He struggled to get up. He was like the weight at the end of a stick. Again he thought: ‘I shall never get up, I shall never get up.’ His struggles became desperate. All of a sudden he ceased struggling, fell, and lay stretched on the ground.
Some time passed. The fir-tree, the birds and all the trees kept still. On the dark, loamy earth Israel’s head rolled gently to and fro like a ball of paper in a wind, then became still too.
The thought that he would not rise again became separated from him by a chasm of blackness. This blackness revolved and in revolving blew upon him draughts of a ghastly dampness. And the purpose of all his struggles, mental or otherwise, became only to avoid or stop this. Nothing else was visible, audible or sensible to him.
Once the thought raced by: ‘What if I do die here? Does anyone know where I have come? Would they find me?’
At this thought, for no reason at all, a red ball he used to play with as a child rolled past in the darkness. He made efforts to catch it. But these efforts, like all his other struggles, though strenuous, were futile and pathetic, and the ball vanished.
After this he felt twice his previous misery. Then the strange singing he had always connected with these attacks began in his head again. And simultaneously with this a warm dribble of moisture ran from his lips.
He coughed. This was consciousness. Little by little the revolving darkness ceased. A still darkness, in which he remembered what had happened, took its place. Finally he conquered this also, and opening his eyes, saw the fir-tree, the axe, the undergrowth, the dark earth dotted a little way off with primrose leaves and primrose buds.
He staggered on rising. To him the sunshine was colder and more pitiless than the darkness had been. He suffered pain merely in walking from tree to tree and constantly shivered. Without looking at the half-hewn birch he took up the chopper and then, when out of the copse, let it fall into the grass and did not pick it up again.
He kept shuddering. The meadows, the green corn-fields, the fallow land and the trees now and then swirled sickeningly, like a roundabout. He felt old and kept asking himself: ‘How old am I? What am I doing?’
He never answered these questions, even though, like every sensation, the shuddering, the sickness, the fear of death in the wood, they were repeated again and again.
This was his worst attack. Waiting till Henrietta had gone for some purpose into the orchard he crept into the house and then drank brandy heavily from the bottle in the kitchen. And suddenly without warning he remembered it needed thirteen days to the sale of the land.
VIII
Nearly a week passed. Israel went about looking older. Now and then he thought of the sale of his land. Yet still he felt that the worst might not come. Nevertheless he caught himself unconsciously looking forward to the date of the sale, and his feeling of being a man set apart to await a fixed event remained with him. He began to feel older.
Yet every day he rose as usual, did his milking, feeding and cleaning, and then went into the fields. In the fields he rolled his young wheat, planted potatoes, drilled roots and bush-harrowed his grass. All these things he tried to do consistently and well. At the same time he did them without spirit, did them badly, and yet did not know he was doing them badly.
One morning Henrietta implored him: ‘Go and get the pole for the hen-roof. It’ll fall down. There’ll be such a mess.’ She looked at him with a trace of weariness. ‘How many times have I asked you? Do go.’
‘I’ll go.’
But he did not go. He did not even trouble to look for the axe in the grass.
A succession of warm spring days came. The grass even steamed faintly in the sunshine. Israel heard the cuckoo, at first rarely, then every day, and in the afternoons the walls of the house grew quite hot and glaring. The cherry-trees began to come into blossom, and by the time the cherry petals had begun to fall, the pear-trees and apple-trees were in full bloom.
And the thought began to grow in Israel’s mind: ‘Now the warm days have come I shan’t have these attacks. I shall be all right.’
For a week there was no attack. Then one morning after he had been working at the fallen tree in the orchard there was a terrible one.
He was in the kitchen. Darkness enveloped him completely, he reeled and staggered. The sound of this brought in Henrietta. There was a confused flutter of skirts and the words: ‘What has happened? what has happened?’
He was sitting huddled in a chair. In the heart of that terrible and ghastly darkness he made no answer.
She began to run hither and thither, bringing first water, then towels, then climbing to the cupboard for the brandy bottle. All the time she kept murmuring to herself: ‘I told him how it would be, I told him!’
The brandy bottle was empty. She did not understand this.
To Israel all her efforts were only sounds in the darkness. His head sang with echoes. He began presently to murmur: ‘Leave me alone, leave me alone!’
The echoes became more insistent.
‘Leave me alone! I am all right!’ He coughed.
But in his heart he was thinking: ‘She will find out about the brandy bottle. She’ll know everything.’
Now she directed her murmurs to him, aloud:
‘I told you how it would be. I told you, I told you.’
Had she told him? He could not remember because of the darkness, the damp and cold, because he was more wretched than he had ever been. Tears came into his eyes. He longed desperately for the days when he had had no such wretchedness. He longed for those days more and more. Outside birds were in song, the sun lit up the blossom, but he felt for a long time cold and unhappy. And as time went past he longed simply to do something to make Henrietta happy again.
And just before evening he conceived the idea of going to the copse and bringing back the fir-tree. Henrietta struggled with him, said, ‘You can’t go, you can’t go!’ and began to cry. But he only shouted:
‘The fir-tree, the fir-tree! You want it, don’t you?’
She had to seize his shoulders and force him into a chair. ‘You’re not well,’ she whispered. ‘Stay here.’
He understood what this meant. Yet all that night and all the next day he thought only of where to find the lost axe, of going to the copse again, and bringing home the fir-tree.
IX
Each day, now, Israel was conscious of Henrietta observing him with troubled eyes. But more than anything he was conscious of two things which now he never separated – illness and the approaching sale. The thought of the sale would bring on a feeling of faintness, and if he felt ill without thinking of it, not a minute would pass before it began to trouble him.
Now he passed through long periods of inactivity through sheer weakness of body and spirit. He complained of the sun on his head. When showers came he stood at the door, watched them and did not go out again until
the sky cleared. He played with the cat, stared moodily at the river, and walked to and from the orchard endlessly, carrying a log of wood under each arm. And everywhere he was conscious of dreading these two afflictions – illness and the surrender of his land.
And whenever she saw him go out Henrietta asked:
‘Where are you off to?’
If he said ‘To the stable’ or ‘To fetch some straw’ it was all right, but if he said ‘Down to saw a little more off that tree’ or ‘To draw water’ she would clutch his coat and beg him not to go. This would produce a feeling of irritation, and he would be angry. And irritation and anger began to upset him.
The day of the sale arrived. The sale was to be held at the offices of some auctioneers ten miles off. It was a fine morning, distance was sharp and bright and the sky a soft transparent blue. In the orchard the trees were rosy now and others shed petals in little gusts, as if they shook with laughter.
Israel wished to harness his oldest nag, drive the ten miles and be present at the sale. He even got the horse ready and sat polishing the harness with oil in the sunshine. Then Henrietta happened to catch sight of him and came to ask:
‘What are you cleaning harness for? Where are you going?’
He felt irritated at once and said: ‘Never do you mind.’
Then, catching sight of her worried expression, he repented and said simply:
‘I thought of driving over to that sale.’
She picked up the oil.
‘But you can’t go, it’s too far,’ she said. ‘Besides, whatever happens at the sale we shall hear all about. It’ll be in the papers,’ she impressed on him.
She spoke plaintively, so that he felt older and yet like a child; and at once he understood an expression he had heard applied to old men, the expression of ‘second childhood.’ And he was suddenly angry, dropped the harness, and hobbled off into the house.
She followed him. ‘Listen to me, don’t put yourself out,’ she kept saying.
Then he expressed his anger: ‘You treat me like a new-born baby!’
‘But if anything happened – think of that. Think if you had an attack.’
He gazed at her with deep, pale-blue eyes, fuming silently at her for one moment longer. Then he ceased. Yes, supposing he had an attack, on the roadside, in that rocking old cart, with only the old nag there? He might fall, sink down and never get up again. Yes, it might happen. And this would bring about, he knew, a position of misery and hardship for her. So he would not go, how could he?
And he said: ‘I expect I shan’t have to go,’ thinking he would let her see that he did not give in easily.
‘It’ll be all the better for you here,’ she said.
‘Give me the oil, let me finish the harness, then,’ he asked.
He could see that she did not trust him. But she gave him the oil and he went back, nursing this affliction, to where he had been sitting in the shelter of the front wall of the house. He was conscious of moving more than ever like an old man. He sat down again, the harness on his knees. The bench on which he sat, the whitewashed wall and the earth under him were quite warm. Birds were singing, the river sparkled like a necklace stretched across the green meadows. At intervals the cuckoo called, now near, now far, moving from tree to tree. There was a smell of fresh earth and grass, then of harness-oil and manure, then borne along faintly yet more lastingly than any, the scent of all the trees in the orchard.
And looking up from time to time Israel sat and dreamily gazed at all this. He thought how splendid everything looked: the trees, the meadows, the water, the grazing cattle, the young crops, the village and the woods behind. And especially it seemed that he had never seen the orchard so lovely, so full of promise. Underneath all the trees seemed to have formed snowdrifts, and sometimes when a faint wind stirred among them this snow shimmered and looked pink.
And suddenly he thought: ‘Perhaps by now this is nothing to me. It’s sold already, perhaps.’
Sadness seemed to strike him in the breast. He felt faint and polished the harness half-heartedly, staring into the distance.
‘Perhaps it doesn’t belong to me,’ he kept thinking.
And as before, with the thought of the sale came the thought of illness. Israel held himself rigid and for a moment tried to think not of illness or eviction but only muse on the future. And then he made the bitter discovery that illness and death were the future.
And suddenly the sunny meadows, the blooming of spring, the crops and the cherry-trees with their setting fruit meant nothing to him. The harness, though he went on polishing it for a long time, meant nothing either.
And from that moment onwards he began to have recurring spasms when he experienced nothing but fear of death.
X
Two mornings later Henrietta began to act strangely towards him. Time after time she would stop suddenly, stare at him, open her mouth as if to say something and then desist. He grew impatient with her.
‘What’s the matter with you? Why do you keep staring?’ he shouted suddenly.
She was kneading dough: he could not see her face. He just heard a whisper:
‘Nothing.’
And this angered him. He began to shout at the top of his voice: ‘What is it! what’s the matter?’
‘Don’t shout, father.’
He lowered his voice, began to speak, then stopped. A thought had struck him. This thought, when formed into words, nearly choked him. But he repeated it twice in a whisper:
‘It’s been sold, hasn’t it? It’s been sold?’
Henrietta dropped her eyes. A silence fell. He was conscious of only her hands thudding very softly in the dough. Then again he said:
‘It’s been sold, hasn’t it?’
And he knew by the second drop of her eyes and the renewed silence that the farm had been sold. To whom and for how much it had been sold it was not necessary to ask. He only felt angry and raised his voice:
‘We’re to go, I expect?’
‘Don’t fret yourself.’
‘We’re to go, I expect?’ he shouted.
Then suddenly he saw that Henrietta’s lashes were wet. A tear directly afterwards bounded off her hand into the dough. And the sight of this single tear was too much for him. He suddenly felt wretched, listless, aspiring towards nothing, possessing not even a desire to stand still, but standing still because it seemed the nearest approach to nothing. And then, happening to glance up, he caught sight of his face in the glass. It appeared haggard, nearly grey against the red neckerchief, its eyes sunken and of no definite colour. Suddenly he remembered how Sam Houghton had seen a change in him. And now he himself saw this change, without fear, without delusion. And all he longed for was one moment in which to see himself as he had been before it – red in the face, with keen, fresh eyes and a look of hardiness even about his white hair. But he understood that it would not come, just as he understood no repeal of the order of eviction would come. And against either he had not the strength to protest. He sat in his chair all afternoon, his fleshy lips hung apart, his hands trembling on the arms of the chair, and when Henrietta came near him he muttered only:
‘Leave me alone! For God’s sake go away!’
XI
In the dead of night Israel woke up with a start, muttering these same words: ‘Let me alone! Leave me in peace.’
The blinds were drawn, the room was in total darkness. Yet as he lay stretched on his back he fancied he could see roving shapes on the ceiling, then on the walls, and lastly over the bed. It was to these shapes he thought he must have been crying: ‘Let me alone! For God’s sake go away.’
In the first few moments between the end of the dream and full wakefulness, he thought frantically: ‘Why is it so dark, can I be dead? Where am I?’
Gradually he came to complete consciousness. Some one had left a door open and he heard a clock distinctly ticking downstairs. He lay and recalled some fragments of a horrible dream in which a whole forest of trees had been falling upo
n him. The memory of this dream was itself terrible. Now the air was sultry, there was a scent of blossoming trees. Now and then cocks crowed. What time it was he did not know. He lay listening for an hour to strike. Nothing struck, however, and he felt himself grow more restless and wakeful.
His head was full of thoughts; each one of which was clear, strong, yet strange and endlessly repeated. And this form of repetition made a sort of pattern of thought, thus:
‘Sales by private deed.… It’s sold, isn’t it, it’s sold? … Yes, I will finish cutting it down.… I will finish it to-morrow.… We’re to go, I expect? … When shall we go? … Yes, to-morrow.… Leave me alone, I will finish it to-morrow! I’ll finish it!’
Then two voices began to hold a conversation in his head:
‘Is it true it’s been sold?’
‘I expect so.’
‘She didn’t say so.’
‘I know it has.’ His heart grew heavy at this.
‘Have you provided for Henrietta?’
‘She will have everything.’
‘What is there?’
‘I don’t know.’
And so he brought himself to a position where he considered the position, that is illness, eviction and death, calmly and unselfishly. Yet it was a troubled position. Each moment gave birth to this question:
‘What is there?’
And the same answer:
‘I don’t know.’
After a little he felt that he must know. He got out of bed in the darkness, put on some stockings, opened the door and stepped out. Outside it was darker still. Henrietta slept at the end of the landing. He listened. Nothing more than the clock ticking in the stillness below reached him. Moving again he tried not to shuffle or breathe, and held his nightshirt against his legs.
In the room which held the old bureau, the drying seeds and melancholy photographs he found a candle, lit it carefully and set it down. In this room there were no curtains and he could look out on a bluish sky with stars, the orchard which looked as if planted with big, white flowers, the dark land beyond, and the darker meadows through which the river was running, and darkest of all the woods against the sky. In the room there was the same air of dampness, the smell of grease and dust. And in a stillness which seemed afraid of itself Israel sat down with care.