Chapter 19. From Churchyard To Public-House

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_ CHAPTER XIX. FROM CHURCHYARD TO PUBLIC-HOUSE

The September afternoon lay grey and warm and still over the capital as Falk climbed the hills in the south. When he had arrived at the churchyard of St. Catherine's he sat down to rest; he noticed with a feeling of genuine pleasure that the maples had turned colour during the recent cold nights, and he welcomed autumn with its darkness, its grey clouds, and falling leaves.

Not a breath stirred; it was as if Nature were resting, tired after the work of the short summer. Everything was asleep; the dead were lying beneath the sod, calm and peaceful, as if they had never been alive; he wished that he had all men there, and that he, himself, was with them.

The clock on the tower chimed the hour, and he rose and continued his walk. He went down Garden Street, turned into New Street--which looked as if it had been new a hundred years ago at least--crossed the New Market, and came to the White Mountains.

He stood still before the spotted house, listening to the children's chatter, for, as usual, there were children playing about the street; they talked loudly and unreservedly while they were busy polishing little pieces of brick, presently to be used in a game of hop-scotch.

"What did you have for dinner, Janne?"

"That's my business!"

"Your business? Did you say it was your business? Mind what you're about or you'll get a hiding."

"Don't brag! You with your eyes!"

"Who shoved you into the lake the other day?"

"Oh! shut up!"

Janne received a thrashing, and peace was restored.

"I say! You stole cress in the churchyard the other day, didn't you, Janne?"

"That cripple Olee split on me!"

"And you were nabbed by the police, weren't you?"

"Who cares for the police? I don't!"

"Don't you? Come along of us to-night then; we're going to pinch some pears."

"There's a savage dog behind the fence!"

"Garn! Chimney-sweep's Peter'll climb over and a kick'll do for the dog."

The polishing was interrupted by a maid-servant who came out of the house and began to scatter pine branches on the grass-grown street.

"Who's going to be buried?"

"The deputy's wife's baby!"

"He's a proper old Satan, the deputy, isn't he?"

Instead of replying, the other began whistling an unknown and very peculiar tune.

"Let's thrash his red-haired cubs when they come home from school! I say! Doesn't his old woman fancy herself? The old she-devil locked us out in the snow the other night because we couldn't pay the rent, and we had to spend the night in the barn."

The conversation flickered out; the last item of conversation had not made the smallest impression on Janne's friend.

After this introduction to the status of the tenants by the two urchins, Falk entered the house not with the pleasantest of sensations. He was received at the door by Struve, who looked distressed, and took Falk's arm as if he were going to confide a secret to him, or suppress a tear--he had to do something, so he embraced him.

Falk found himself in a big room with a dining-table, a sideboard, six chairs, and a coffin. White sheets were hanging before the windows through which the daylight filtered and broke at the red glow of the tallow candles; on the table stood a tray with green wine glasses, and a soup tureen filled with dahlias, stocks, and white asters.

Struve seized Falk's hand and led him to the coffin where the baby lay bedded on shavings, covered with tulle, and strewn with fuchsias.

"There!" he said, "there!"

Falk felt nothing but the quite commonplace emotion the living always feel in the presence of the dead; he could think of nothing suitable to say, and therefore he confined himself to pressing the father's hand. "Thank you, thank you," stammered Struve, and disappeared in an adjoining room.

Falk was left alone; he could hear excited whispering behind the door through which Struve had vanished; then it grew still for a while; but presently a murmur from the other end of the room penetrated the matchboard wall. A strident treble seemed to be reciting long verses with incredible volubility.

"Babebibobubybäbö--Babebibobubybäbö--Babebibobubybäbö," it sounded.

An angry man's voice answered to the accompaniment of a plane which said hwitcho--hwitcho--hwitch--hwitch--hitch--hitch.

And a long-drawn, rumbling mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum replied, seemingly anxious to calm the storm. But the plane spat and sneezed again its hwitch--hwitch, and immediately after a storm of Babili--bebili--bibili--bobili--bubili--bybili--bäbili--bö--broke out with fresh fury.

Falk guessed the subject under discussion, and a certain intonation gave him the idea that the dead baby was involved in the argument.

The whispering, occasionally interrupted by loud sobs, began again behind the door through which Struve had disappeared; finally it was pushed open and Struve appeared leading by the hand a woman who looked like a laundress; she was dressed in black, and her eyelids were red and swollen with weeping. Struve introduced her with all the dignity of a father of a family:

"My wife, Mr. Falk, my old friend."

Falk clasped a hand, hard as a beetle, and received a vinegary smile. He cast about for a few platitudes containing the words "wife" and "grief," and as he was fairly successful, he was rewarded by Struve with an embrace.

Mrs. Struve, anxious not to be left out in the cold, began brushing the back of her husband's coat.

"It's dreadful how you seem to pick up every bit of dirt, Christian," she said; "your back's always dusty. Don't you think that my husband always looks like a pig, Mr. Falk?"

There was no need for poor Falk to reply to this tender remark; behind the mother's back now appeared two heads, regarding the visitor with a grin. The mother patted them affectionately.

"Have you ever seen plainer boys before, Mr. Falk?" she asked. "Don't they look exactly like young foxes?"

This statement was so undeniably accurate that Falk felt compelled to deny it eagerly.

The opening of the hall door and the entrance of two men stopped all further civilities. The first of the new-comers was a man of thirty, broad-shouldered, with a square head, the front of which was supposed to represent the face; the skin looked like the half-rotten plank of a bridge in which worms have ploughed their labyrinths; the wide mouth, always slightly open, showed the four shining eye-teeth; whenever he smiled his face seemed to split into two parts; his mouth opened as far back as the fourth back tooth; not a single hair grew in the barren soil; the nose was so badly put on that one could see through it far into the head; on the upper part of the skull grew something which looked like cocoa-nut matting.

Struve, who possessed the faculty of ennobling his environment, introduced Candidate Borg as Dr. Borg. The latter, without a sign of either pleasure or annoyance, held out his arm to his companion, who pulled off the coat and hung it on the hinge of the front door, an act which drew from Mrs. Struve the remark that the old house was in such bad repair that there was not even a hall-stand.

The man who had helped Borg off with his overcoat was introduced as Mr. Levi. He was a tall, overgrown youth; the skull seemed but a backward development of the nasal bone, and the trunk which reached to the knees, looked as if it had been drawn through a wire plate, in the way in which wire is drawn; the shoulders slanted like eaves; there was no trace of hips, the shanks ran up into the thighs; the feet were worn out of shape like a pair of old shoes; the instep had given way. The legs curved outward and downward, like the legs of a working man who has carried heavy loads, or stood for the greater part of his life. He was a pure slave-type.

The candidate had remained at the door; he had taken off his gloves, put down his stick, blown his nose, and put back the handkerchief into his pocket without taking the least notice of Struve's repeated attempts to introduce him; he believed that he was still in the entrance hall; but now he took his hat, scraped the floor with his foot and made a step into the room.

"Good morning, Jenny! How are you?" he said, seizing Mrs. Struve's hand with as much eagerness as if it were a matter of life and death. He bowed, hardly perceptibly, to Falk, with the snarl of a dog who sees a strange dog in its yard.

Young Mr. Levi followed at the heels of the candidate, responding to his smiles, applauding his sarcasms, and generally kow-towing to his superiority.

Mrs. Struve opened a bottle of hock and filled the glasses. Struve raised his glass and welcomed his guests. The candidate opened his mouth, made a canal of his tongue, poured the contents of the glass on it, grinned as if it were physic and swallowed it.

"It's awfully sour and nasty," said Mrs. Struve; "would you prefer a glass of punch, Henrik?"

"Yes, it is very nasty," agreed the candidate, and Levi eagerly seconded him.

The punch was brought in. Borg's face brightened; he looked for a chair, and immediately Levi brought him one.

The party sat down round the dining-table. The strong scent of the stocks mingled with the smell of the wine; the candles were reflected in the glasses, the conversation became lively, and soon a column of smoke stood above the candidate's chair. Mrs. Struve glanced uneasily at the little sleeper near the window, but nobody saw her look.

Presently a coach stopped in the street outside the house. Everybody rose except the candidate. Struve coughed, and in a low voice, as if he had something unpleasant to say, he whispered:

"Shall we get ready now?"

Mrs. Struve went to the coffin and stooped over it, weeping bitterly; when, in drawing back, she saw her husband standing behind her with the coffin lid, she burst into loud sobs.

"There, there, compose yourself," said Struve, hastening to screw down the lid as if he wanted to hide something. Borg, looking like a yawning horse, gulped down another glass of punch. Mr. Levi helped Struve to screw down the lid, displaying quite extraordinary skill; he seemed to be packing a bale of goods.

The men shook hands with Mrs. Struve, put on their overcoats and went; the woman warned them to be careful in going downstairs; the stairs were old and rotten.

Struve marched in front, carrying the coffin; when he stepped into the street and became aware of the little crowd which had collected before the house, he felt flattered, and the devil of pride took possession of him. He scolded the driver who had omitted to open the door and let down the steps; to heighten the effect of his words, he spoke with contemptuous familiarity to the tall man in livery who, hat in hand, hastened to carry out his commands.

From the centre of the crowd, where the boy Janne was standing, came a short, scornful cough; but when the boy saw that he was attracting universal attention, he raised his eyes towards the chimneys, and seemed to be eagerly looking for the sweep.

The door of the coach slammed behind the four men; a lively conversation broke out between some of the younger members of the mass-meeting, who now felt more at their ease.

"I say, what a swell coffin! Did you see it?"

"Yes! But did you see that there was no name on it?"

"Wasn't there?"

"No! Didn't you see it? It was quite plain."

"Why was that, then?"

"Don't you know? Because he was a bastard...."

The whip cracked, and the coach rumbled off. Falk's eyes strayed to the window; he caught a glimpse of Mrs. Struve, who had already removed some of the sheets, blowing out the candles; and he saw the two cubs standing by the side of her, each with a glass of wine in his hand.

The coach rattled along, through street after street; nobody attempted to speak. Struve, sitting with the coffin on his knees, looked embarrassed; it was still daylight; he longed to make himself invisible.

It was a long journey to the churchyard, but it finally came to an end. They arrived.

A row of coaches stood before the gate. They bought wreaths and the gravedigger took possession of the coffin. After a lengthy walk, the small procession stopped quite at the back on the north side of the churchyard, close to a new sandfield.

The gravedigger placed the coffin in position.

Borg commanded:

"Hold tight! Ease off! Let go!"

And the little nameless child was lowered three yards into the ground.

There was a pause; all heads were bowed and all eyes looking into the grave, as if they were waiting for something.

A leaden sky gloomed dismally over the large, deserted sandfield, the white poles of which looked like the shadows of little children who had lost their way. The dark wood might have been the background in a magic lantern show; the wind was hushed.

All of a sudden a voice rose, tremulous at first, but growing in clearness and intensity, as if it were speaking from an inner conviction. Levi was standing on the pall, bare-headed:

"In the safe keeping of the Most High, resting in the shadow of His omnipotence, I say to the Eternal: Oh, Thou my stronghold, my defence in all eternity, my God in whom I trust--Kaddisch. Lord, Almighty God, let Thy holy name be worshipped and sanctified in the whole world. Thou wilt, in Thy own time, renew the world. Thou wilt awaken the dead and call them to a new life. Everlasting peace reigns in Thy kingdom. Give us and all Israel Thy peace. Amen.

"Sleep soundly, little one, to whom no name had been given. He who knoweth His own will give you a name; sleep soundly in the autumn night, no evil spirits will trouble you, although you never received the holy water; rejoice that you are spared the battle of life; you can dispense with its pleasures. Count yourself happy that you were permitted to go, before you knew the world; pure and stainless your soul left its delicate tenement; therefore we will not throw earth on your coffin, for earth is an emblem of dissolution; we will bed you in flowers, for as a flower pierces the soil, so your soul shall rise from the dark grave to the light; from spirit you came, to spirit you will return."

He dropped his wreath into the little grave and covered his head. Struve took a few steps towards him, seized his hand, and shook it warmly; tears rolled down his cheeks, and he begged Levi for the loan of his handkerchief. Borg, after throwing his wreath into the grave, turned to go, and the others followed slowly.

Falk stood gazing into the open grave, plunged in deep thought. At first he saw only a square of darkness; but gradually a bright spot appeared which grew and took shape; it looked like a disc and shone with the whiteness of a mirror--it was the blank shield on which the life of the child should have been recorded. It gleamed brightly in the darkness, reflecting the unbroken daylight. He dropped his wreath. There was a faint, dull thud, and the light went out. He turned and followed the others.

Arrived at the coach, there was a brief discussion. Borg cut it short.

"To the Restaurant Norrbacka!" he said, briefly.

* * * * *

A few minutes later the party was standing in the large room on the first floor; they were received by a girl whom Borg embraced and kissed; this done, he pushed his hat underneath the sofa, commanded Levi to help him off with his overcoat, and ordered a quart of punch, twenty-five cigars, half a pint of brandy, and a sugar-loaf. Finally he took off his coat and sat down in shirt sleeves on the only sofa in the room.

Struve's face beamed when he saw the preparations for an orgy, and he shouted for music. Levi went to the piano and strummed a waltz, while Struve put his arm into Falk's and walked with him up and down the room. He touched lightly on life in general, on grief and joy, the inconstant nature of man, and so on, all of which went to prove that it was a sin to mourn what the gods--he said gods, because he had already said sin and did not wish to be taken for a pietist--had given and taken.

This reflexion was apparently made by way of an introduction to the waltz which he immediately after danced with the girl who brought the bowl.

Borg filled the glasses, called Levi, nodded towards a glass, and said:

"Let's drink to our brotherly love now; later on we can be as rude as we like."

Levi expressed his appreciation of the honour.

"Your health, Isaac!" said Borg.

"My name's not Isaac!"

"What the dickens do I care what your name is? I call you Isaac, my Isaac."

"You're a jolly devil...."

"Devil! Shame on you, Jew!"

"We were going to be as rude as we liked...."

"We? I was, as far as you are concerned!"

Struve thought he had better interfere.

"Thank you, brother Levi, for your beautiful words," he said. "What prayer was that?"

"Our funeral prayer!"

"It was beautiful!"

"Nothing but empty words," interposed Borg. "The infidel dog prayed only for Israel; therefore the prayer couldn't have been meant for the child."

"All those who are not baptized are looked upon as belonging to Israel," replied Levi.

"And then you attacked baptism," continued Borg. "I don't allow anybody to attack baptism--we can do that ourselves. And furthermore you attacked the doctrine of justification by faith. Leave it alone in future; I don't permit any outsiders to attack our religion."

"Borg's right there," said Struve; "we should draw the line at attacking either baptism or any other of the sacred truths; and I must beg of you not to indulge in any frivolous discussion of these things to-night."

"You must beg of us?" sneered Borg. "Must you really? All right! I'll forgive you if you'll hold your tongue. Play something, Isaac! Music! Why is music mute at Cæsar's feast? Music! But none of your old chestnuts! Play something new!"

Levi went to the piano, and played the overture to "The Mute."

"Now, let's talk," said Borg. "You are looking depressed, Mr. Falk; have a glass with me."

Falk, who felt a certain embarrassment in Borg's company, accepted the offer with mental reservations. But conversation languished, everybody seemed to dread a collision.

Struve fluttered about like a moth in search of pleasure, but unable to find it he again and again returned to the punch-table; every now and then he danced a few steps, to keep up the fiction that the meeting was merry and festive; but this was not the case by any means.

Levi see-sawed between piano and punch. He attempted to sing a cheerful song, but it was so stale that nobody would listen to it.

Borg talked at the top of his voice, "in order to raise his spirits," as he said, but the party grew more and more silent, one might almost have said uneasy.

Falk paced up and down the room, taciturn, portentous like a thundercloud.

At Borg's order a tremendous supper, a "sexa" was served. The convives took their seats amidst ominous silence. Struve and Borg drank immoderate quantities of brandy; in the face of the latter red spots appeared here and there, and the white of the eyes looked yellow. But Struve resembled a varnished Edam cheese; he was uniformly red and greasy. Beside them Falk and Levi looked like children, eating their last supper in the society of giants.

Borg looked at Levi. "Hand the salmon to the scandal-monger," he commanded, in order to break the monotonous silence.

Levi handed the dish to Struve. The latter pushed his spectacles on to his forehead and spat venom.

"Shame on you, Jew," he foamed, throwing his dinner-napkin in Levi's face.

Borg laid a heavy hand on Struve's bald pate.

"Silence, you blackguard!" he said.

"What dreadful company to be mixed up with! Let me tell you, gentlemen, I'm too old to be treated like a schoolboy," said Struve, tremulously, forgetting his usual bonhomie.

Borg, who had had enough to eat, rose from the table.

"Ugh!" he said, "what a beastly crowd you are! Pay, Isaac, I'll pay you back later on; I'm going."

He put on his overcoat, put his hat on his head, filled a tumbler with punch, added brandy to it, emptied it at one gulp, blew out some of the candles in passing, smashed a few of the glasses, pocketed a handful of cigars and a box of matches, and staggered out of the room.

"What a pity that such a genius should drink like that," said Levi solemnly.

A moment later Borg re-entered the room, went to the dining-table, took the candelabrum, lighted his cigar, blew the smoke into Struve's face, put out his tongue, showed his back teeth, extinguished the lights, and departed again. Levi rolled on the floor screaming with laughter.

"To what scum have you introduced me?" asked Falk gravely.

"Oh, my dear fellow, he's intoxicated to-night, but he's the son of Professor Dr...."

"I didn't ask who his father was, I asked who he was," said Falk, cutting him short, "I understand now why you allow such a dog to bully you; but can you tell me why he associates with you?"

"I reserve my reply to all these futilities," answered Struve stiffly.

"Do reserve it, but reserve it for yourself!"

"What's the matter with you, brother Levi?" asked Struve officiously; "you look so grave."

"It's a great pity that a genius like Borg should drink so much," replied Levi.

"How and when does he show his genius?" asked Falk.

"A man can be a genius without writing verse," said Struve pointedly.

"I dare say; writing verse does not pre-suppose genius, nor is a man a genius if he behaves like a brute," said Falk.

"Hadn't we better pay and go?" remarked Struve, hurrying towards the door.

Falk and Levi paid. When they stepped into the street it rained and the sky was black; only the reflexion of the gas-lit town faintly illuminated the sky. The coach had driven away; there was nothing left for them but to turn up their collars and walk.

They had gone as far as the skittle-alley, when they were startled by terrible yells above their heads.

"Curse you!" screamed a voice, and looking up they saw Borg rocking himself on one of the highest branches of a lime tree. The branch nearly touched the ground, but at the next moment it described a tremendous curve upwards.

"Oh! Isn't it colossal!" screamed Levi. "Colossal!"

"What a madman," smiled Struve, proud of his protégé.

"Come along, Isaac!" bellowed Borg, high up in the air, "come along, Jew, let's borrow money from each other!"

"How much do you want?" asked Levi, waving his pocket book.

"I never borrow less than fifty!"

At the next moment Borg had slid to the ground and pocketed the note.

Then he took off his overcoat.

"Put it on again immediately!" commanded Struve.

"What do you say? I'm to put it on again? Who are you to order me about? What? Do you want a fight?"

He smashed his hat against the tree, took off coat and waistcoat, and let the rain beat on his shirt.

"Come here, you rascal! Let's have a fight!"

He seized Struve round the waist, and, staggering backwards, both of them fell into the ditch.

Falk hurried away as fast as he could. And for a long time he could hear behind him outbursts of laughter and shouts of bravo. He could distinguish Levi's voice yelling: "It's divine, it's colossal--it's colossal!" And Borg's: "Traitor! Traitor!" _

Read next: Chapter 20. On The Altar

Read previous: Chapter 18. Nihilism

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